The citizens of the United States have elected 43 presidents in 57 elections since the Constitution was adopted in 1789. Over the last 150 years presidential contests have been dominated by the US's two major political parties – the Republicans and the Democrats. But before the Civil War, there were several other parties in contention. Watch to see how the states voted in every presidential election.
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Don't listen to anyone telling you your beard is dirty, guys. Science says the opposite could be true.
A 2014 study, recently resurfaced by the BBC, may provide some additional ammo for beard advocates. In the study, both bearded and shaven healthcare workers — 400 in total —were tested for a specific bacteria on their faces: MRSA, which has become resistant to many antibiotics.
The study found that the clean shaven men had a higher rate of the harmful bacteria on their faces than the bearded healthcare workers.
How could this be, when we've been told that beards can be "as dirty as toilets?" The researchers offered a theory: the micro-abrasions caused by shaving allowed many different crevices in the face for bacteria to hide.
The BBC offered another theory: that the beard hairs themselves are actually acting as a sort of antibiotic. And in some instances, researchers found that to be true after discovering microbes that could kill certain kinds of bacteria.
Of course, just this small amount of research can't conclusively label beards as either healthy or unhealthy.
"It's a little more complex than any article makes it," Philip Tierno, a clinical microbiology and pathology professor at NYU, told Mic. Tierno went on to say that bacteria and microbes can be added to your face in any number of ways, and there's no way to tell how they really got there.
"There's no downside to a beard, per se," he told Mic.
Just makes sure you wash your face. Regularly.
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A couple years ago, Uber used its technology to help couples who wanted on-demand weddings in San Francisco.
Now, there's a startup that's trying to make getting a divorce just as painless.
Wevorce, a startup that has the goal of "[making] every divorce amicable," was founded by Michelle Crosby.
When Crosby was a kid, her parents got divorced. But instead of being a cut-and-dry process, the divorce resulted in a drawn-out, years-long court battles.
"From a very young age, I knew how broken the system was," she told Business Insider.The worst part, Crosby says, happened when she was 9. She was asked in court which of her parents she would choose to live with if she got stranded on a desert island.
Since then, Crosby has gone to law school and practiced family law. In 2012 she founded Wevorce, and took the company through startup accelerator Y Combinator. Based in Boise, Idaho, the female-founded, 15-person startup has helped facilitate more than 300 divorces. The company says 98% of these divorces stayed out of court.
Wevorce's web-based platform allows couples to go through a collaborative divorce — one in which both partners work together to decide how to split assets and figure out how to coparent. It's a way to ensure that neither party is too disappointed when they finally sign the divorce papers.
Wevorce's website has five modules, including those that deal with child custody and financials. The last step wraps everything into a legal document for the couple.
The startup is available nationwide and works with a network of 600 attorneys, counselors, and financial professionals across the country that are able to connect with families who need their help.
On Wednesday, Wevorce announced it has raised a $3 million Series A round led by Techstars. Wevorce is planning to expand its services through a series of partnerships, including one with the US military.
To date, Wevorce says it has processed over $40 million in assets through its platform. Wevorce's services start at $749. The average cost of a divorce in the US is $27,000.
Additionally, Wevorce speeds up the process of a divorce. A typical divorce takes over a year to finalize, but Crosby says Wevorce's divorces typically happen in less than 90 days.
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Of the world's wealthiest people, the majority still hail from the world's top economic superpower — the United States. There are 29 US billionaires who rank among the 50 richest on earth, and they command a whopping $938 billion between them.
This comes from new data provided to Business Insider by Wealth-X, a company that conducts research on the super-wealthy, featured in our recent ranking of the world's richest people. Wealth-X maintains a database of dossiers on more than 110,000 ultra-high-net-worth people, using a proprietary valuation model that takes into account each person's assets, then adjusts estimated net worth to account for currency-exchange rates, local taxes, savings rates, investment performance, and other factors.
The two richest people in America are no surprise: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett maintain their lead at the top despite being the two most generous people on earth. But US tech moguls have begun to overtake the upper echelon, with heavyweights like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook adding billions to their net worth each year as their powerful companies continue to grow in value and influence.
Not everyone is an entrepreneur though. Inherited wealth has kept a hefty portion of the country's cash in the hands of a few families, as the Koch brothers, the Waltons of Walmart, and the heirs to the Mars candy conglomerate each rank among the wealthiest.
Read on to learn more about the 29 Americans with the deepest pockets.
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Net worth:$14.3 billion
Age: 77
Country: US
Industry: Hedge funds
Source of wealth: Self-made; Renaissance Technologies
Before revolutionizing the hedge fund industry with his mathematics-based approach, "Quant King" James Simons worked as a code breaker for the US Department of Defense during the Vietnam War, but was fired after criticizing the war in the press. He chaired the math department at Stony Brook University for a decade until leaving in 1978 to start a quantitative-trading firm. That firm, now called Renaissance Technologies, has more than $65 billion in assets under management among its many funds.
Simons has always dreamed big. About 10 years ago, he announced that he was starting a fund that he claimed would be able to handle $100 billion, about 10% of all assets managed by hedge funds at the time. That fund, Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, never quite reached his aspirations — it currently handles about $10.5 billion— but his flagship Medallion fund is among the best-performing ever: It has generated a nearly 80% annualized return before fees since its inception in 1988.
In October, Renaissance shut down a $1 billion fund — one of its smaller ones — "due to a lack of investor interest." The firm's other funds, however, have been up and climbing. Simons retired in 2009, but remains chairman of the company.
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.
Net worth:$14.5 billion
Age: 62
Country: US
Industry: Media
Source of wealth: Self-made; Dish Network
After four years away from satellite TV provider Dish Network, the company he founded in 1980, Charlie Ergen returned to his position as CEO last spring. But Ergen's reunion came amid difficult times for Dish, as the company has been striving to stem its slipping number of subscribers.
But one of the network's newest services might be its saving grace. Last January, the company launched Sling TV, a streaming service that allows subscribers to watch their favorite channels, such as ESPN and Food Network, online for only $20 per month. Though Sling is a 180-degree pivot from Dish's signature product, it has caught on with customers, inspiring copycat services and potentially providing the struggling company with the leg up it needed.
Despite not offering wireless plans to subscribers, Ergen also bought up nearly $10 billion worth of wireless-spectrum licenses at an auction last year. But the purchase incited significant backlash against Dish, which through two controlled affiliates had secured a 25% small-business discount that was subsequently revoked by the FCC. The company was forced to pay penalties exceeding $500 million to the FCC and surrender some of the licenses. Controversy surrounding Ergen's leadership is nothing new, however. His reputation for cutthroat business tactics in the past led The Hollywood Reporter to dub him the "the most hated man in Hollywood."
Tatoosh, a 300-foot yacht owned by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, allegedly did some serious damage to a coral reef in the Cayman Islands, according to the Cayman News Service.
The cause? A dragging anchor chain, which allegedly damaged almost 14,000 square feet of reef in the West Bay replenishment zone earlier this month, says the Department of Environment after conducting a survey using local divers.
That's 80% percent of the coral in the area.
Vulcan Inc., the company that manages Allen's business, released a statement placing the blame on the Port Authority.
"MV Tatoosh was moored in a position explicitly directed by the local Port Authority. When its crew was alerted by a diver that her anchor chain may have impacted coral in the area, the crew promptly, and on their own accord, relocated their position to ensure the reef was protected," the statement provided to Business Insider reads. "Vulcan and the ship's crew are actively and cooperatively working with local authorities to determine the details of what happened." The Tatoosh was anchored by the Doc Poulson shipwreck and The Knife dive site, says Yachting and Boating World.
It's no small thing to manage a 300-foot yacht. Tatoosh — which Allen attempted to sell in 2010 for around $165 million, but ultimately held onto — is a true luxury vessel, complete with multiple helicopter pads, a basketball court, a swimming pool, and a movie theater. It's staffed by 35 crew members. (Allen also owns a second, larger yacht, the 414-foot "Octopus", which has a permanent staff of 60.)
Any ship that damages a reef can be subject to fines. But, as the Cayman News Service points out, multiple reef damage incidents in recent years have not been followed up with any government action or fines, including infractions by Carnival Cruise Lines.
Yet the health of the Caribbean's coral reefs is in jeopardy. Studies show that coral has declined as much as 80% since the 1980s, and the World Resources Institute calls the area around the Cayman Islands "highly threatened".
"The ability of Caribbean coral reefs to cope with future local and global environmental change may be irretrievably compromised," one study published in Science Magazine noted.
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Students at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts have come up with a machine that will make all of your breakfast dreams come true, as it creates pancakes in any shape you design.
Story by Sarah Schmalbruch and editing by Carl Mueller
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America is home to a wide variety of tourist attractions, some of which are fascinatingly wacky.
Whether you're looking for a museum dedicated to bananas or a house made of paper, odds are it can be found somewhere in the US.
We've put together a collection of 30 bizarre tourist attractions that travelers can check out on their next road trip.
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At this museum in San Antonio, Texas, retired master plumber Barney Smith has turned toilet seats into works of art.
Originally started in his garage, the museum is now a popular stop for travelers, who can even get their name engraved on a seat if they bring in one that Smith ends up using.
Click here to learn more about Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum »
You'll feel tiny when you come across the Farnham Colossi (or Land of Giants) in Unger, West Virginia.
Created by Mr. and Mrs. Farnham, a couple who collects over-sized statues, the area features a huge selection of enormous statues that range from a giant Muffler Man to Santa Claus.
Click here to learn more about the Farnham Colossi »
Leila's Hair Museum in Independence, Missouri, is the world's only hair museum to feature over 600 different wreaths and more than 2,000 pieces of jewelry made from human hair.
The pieces were worn by men and women during the Victorian period, and some even contain hair from the likes of Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe.
Click here to learn more about Leila's Hair Museum »
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Some things never change: Bill Gates is still the richest person in the world. He’s been among the wealthiest since Microsoft went public in 1986, and he only got richer as the company's software became the de facto standard on computers around the world.
Gates' net worth today sits at $87.4 billion, according to new Wealth-X data on the world's 50 richest people. That makes Gates more than $20 billion richer than runner-up Amancio Ortega, the man behind Spanish fashion behemoth Zara.
Despite a pledge to donate half of his wealth — his personal lifetime giving already exceeds $27 billion and makes him the most generous person on earth — Gates is still earning money faster than he can give it away.
"I'm certainly well taken care of in terms of food and clothes," he said in a 2013 Telegraph article. "Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point. Its utility is entirely in building an organization and getting the resources out to the poorest in the world."
Since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000, Gates has shifted his focus to global philanthropy. He and his wife Melinda run one of the most powerful charitable organizations in the world, controlling an endowment of more than $40 billion. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation regularly donates millions to causes in agricultural development, emergency relief, urban poverty, global health, and education. The foundation made its largest single donation ever in 2014 — a $50 million gift to fight the spread Ebola in West Africa.
Gates is one of 29 Americans and 12 tech moguls to make the cut for the 50 richest people in the world.
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Our love affair with beards isn't going away any time soon. It is, however, maturing.
The bushy beards of years past have started to give way to a more close-cropped, sculpted, well-kept, professional look.
"The big, super-heavy beard we're seeing less of," Riki Bryan, who works in marketing for Fellow Barber, a chain of barber shops in NYC and San Francisco, told Business Insider. "But it's still very prominent."
Guys are starting to trim their beards "shorter and tighter", which is a look that would be fully acceptable to wear in any profession — even finance.
Guys are also looking for something more interesting to do with the hair on their face, turning them into more traditional shapes. Rediscovering the past, if you will.
Bryan said they're also seeing a lot more mustaches and different variations of facial hair.
How can get in on this yourself? The answer is simple: a beard trimmer. Learn it, love it, live it. They're easy to use, and give your facial hair a great neat, professional look.
Have a burning men's style question? Ask me. I may answer you in a future post. Email me at dgreen@businessinsider.com with the subject line "Men's style question".
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"I'm bored!"
Never will you hear more exasperation in a child's voice than when they utter these words.
When we were kids, the very thought of being bored seemed insufferable.
But now, as adults, we've got so much going on in our lives — so many distractions, responsibilities, and technology at our fingertips to amuse ourselves with — that boredom just doesn't seem like an option anymore.
Unfortunately for us grownups, research suggests that we could be missing out on a lot by not being bored.
Here's why it's a good idea to unplug and get back to boredom for a while:
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Researchers believe that being bored can lead to some of our most original thoughts.
During a study by UK psychologist Sandi Mann, researchers gave subjects various boring tasks to complete and then asked them to use their creative thinking. The subjects who had the most boring task — reading the phone book — came up with the most interesting uses for plastic cups, which is a standard test of divergent thinking.
Mann says that boredom encourages people's minds to wander, leading them to more associative and creative ways of thinking.
As researcher and philosophy professor Andreas Elpidorou explains in a psychology journal article that cites numerous studies, boredom "acts as a regulatory state that keeps one in line with one's projects.
"In the absence of boredom, one would remain trapped in unfulfilling situations, and miss out on many emotionally, cognitively, and socially rewarding experiences. Boredom is both a warning that we are not doing what we want to be doing and a 'push' that motivates us to switch goals and projects," he writes.
When people's minds wander and they're not thinking about what's going on around them, they're more likely to think about the future, European and American researchers found.
In a process known as "autobiographical planning," people most frequently plan and anticipate their future goals while daydreaming.
A glass-bottom bridge in Hunan province is set to blow the rest of China's glass bridges out of the water.
The new bridge, across the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon in Hunan province, will open in the first half of 2016. It will be 400 feet longer, 300 feet taller, and way more knee-rattling than Brave Man's Bridge — the current longest bridge of its kind in the world.
Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Stephen Parkhurst
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There's a really cool sense of innovation in Silicon Valley that makes it one of the most popular destinations in the world.
But everything has its down side, and Silicon Valley is no exception, as seen in this Quora post titled, "What's the dark side of Silicon Valley?"
We sifted through the post to pull together 13 of the worst things about living in Silicon Valley.
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"It is amazingly difficult to start/have a family if you make 'normal' salaries here (you know, only in the $100k range). The amount of wealth in the area has driven up home prices near the places where the jobs are to astronomical levels." — Chris Schrader, Business Intelligence Consultant
"I grew up in an educationally arrogant environment. Students and adults alike were snotty about people who would go to community college / "low tier college" (i.e. SJSU, and even highly ranked schools like UC Davis) because everyone's parents had a Ph.D from a prestigious university." — Min Ju Lee, Google X
"There are plenty of self-proclaimed 'mentors' fishing around to be an adviser to your nascent startup. They end up eating equity and not doing much except just keep connecting you to other useless people. My guess is that they do it because by amassing a huge collection of startups they 'advise', they can hope for at least one of them going Instagram." — Pallav Sharda, ex-physician, now in digital health
If you know someone who shares a little too much about their relationship on Facebook, the reality is that there may be a deeper meaning besides wanting to show off how "happy" they are. Psychotherapist M. Gary Neuman shows why you should hold back on posting about your significant other.
Produced by Justin Gmoser and Graham Flanagan.
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Dubai, the land of towering skyscrapers, is getting yet another set of buildings.
The Rosemont Hotel & Residences is a massive, double-tower complex that's currently being constructed under the direction of ZAS Architects Dubai.
Part of a the new Rosemont global hotel brand, the $550 million project will consist of two towers rising over 50 stories each, adding up to over 2 million square feet on a 140,000-square-foot site.
One tower will be a hotel, and the other will be serviced apartments, all slated to open in 2018. In case you weren't certain you were living in a Jetsons alternate reality, robotic room service and luggage handling should clue you in.
The world's first indoor rainforest is another perk.
Take a look at what the next big thing in luxury real estate will look like.
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Forget green juice, EatPops' fruit and veggie-packed popsicles are the next health trend.
Sophie Milrom, 28, thought of the idea while in law school, when she was too busy studying to grab fresh food. Six months later, she had manufactured a full line of ice pops, and was just named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 for "redefining food and drink."
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A New York cinematographer decided to make the most of the historic blizzard that paralyzed the city by taking slow-motion video of people getting hit in the face with snowballs.
Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss.
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Shake Shack is a favorite among New Yorkers, as famous for its burgers as it is for its insanely long lines. However, one of its lesser-known menu items, the 'shroom burger, is an under-the-radar treat.
Story by Sarah Schmalbruch and editing by Adam Banicki
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Many of us start the morning with the sound of an alarm. Yet, there's always that occasional day when you wake up an hour or two before that classic ringing sound fills the room.
On mornings like this, you've got two choices: Either emerge from the covers and get a head start to the day, or you try to go back to sleep.
But which is the better choice if you want to avoid feeling tired and groggy all day?
That's the question we asked Mayo Clinic professor of medicine and former president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Timothy Morgenthaler, MD.
Morgenthaler, who's also board-certified in the field of sleep medicine, says before you choose you should first ask yourself an obvious, yet key, question: "Am I done sleeping?"
An easy way to answer this question is to determine whether you've put in enough hours of sleep. Most adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep a day, and there's no way of getting around that, according to the National Institute of Health.
If you've clocked in enough shuteye, then waking up early is simply your body's natural reaction to two interacting systems that control "the overall drive to sleep or stay asleep," said Morgenthaler:
While the homeostatic mechanism in your body regulates the intensity of your sleep, your circadian clock regulates the time of day your body starts and stops craving sleep.
So, if you occasionally wake up early after putting in at least 7 hours of sleep the night before, it's probably your body's way of telling you that you've satisfied both systems and you should get up and start your day, Morgenthaler said.
"The overall best is if you can wake up naturally because you’re done sleeping," he said.
On the other hand, if you're waking up early on just a few hours of sleep, you should probably try and squeeze in some more shuteye.
If you get up early, you're not only depriving yourself of sleep, but you're also robbing your body of the majority of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep — the stage of sleep that, according to the National Sleep Foundation:
In general, most of us get the most of our REM sleep between the hours of 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. So, if you're waking up early between those hours and you haven't had at least seven hours of shuteye, you might begin to feel groggy as the day pushes on.
Bottom line: If you're like most adults, then you need at least seven hours of sleep a night — regardless of when you first wake up.
RELATED: 12 healthy habits to get a better night's sleep, according to scientists
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The lead-poisoning crisis plaguing Flint, Michigan might have you wondering: If tap water can be so dangerous, what's in the stuff I'm drinking?
The now-famous city began drawing its water — which it initially sourced from Detroit — from the Flint River in 2014 to save money. But the water from Flint was highly corrosive, causing it to begin leaching the lead from the town's outdated plumbing system into the water.
Special ingredients like orthophosphates can be added to the water supply to keep this from happening, but the city failed to include them.
Lead tests on the city's tap supply have shown levels of the toxic metal ranging from 27 parts per billion — close to double the 15 ppb amount that's considered a cause for concern by the EPA — to an exceedingly high 158 ppb.
While most drinking water should have little-to-no lead, it has a surprising number of other added ingredients — most of which actually make it safe to drink. Take a look:
READ MORE: 2 states are now undergoing a lead poisoning crisis — here’s what exposure does to your body
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NOW WATCH: The water in Flint, Michigan, has been poisoning children — now teachers are seeing the effects
In his book "The Virgin Way," Richard Branson reveals that he loathes speaking in public. This is quite surprising given that the Virgin Group founder is one of the most active business people, doing countless public and media appearances.
Here's how he got over his fear of delivering speeches and his tips on a making a great speech.
Edited by Justin Gmoser. Produced by Graham Flanagan.
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