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The North Korean government is notoriously secretive. Upon entry to the country, visitors are instructed on what they can and cannot take pictures of. Customs agents inspect your cell phone and other digital devices, including cameras, tablets, and storage cards, for banned content.

These restrictions prompted Getty photographer Xiaolu Chu to travel by train through the country in August 2015, documenting everyday life through her phone lens. She explained to Tech Insider that whipping out her DSLR camera was too risky in some of the villages, where the locals reported sightings to the police.

While some images were deleted during run-ins with the police, Chu shared the remainder of her trip with us. Here's what it was like.

Chu took the long way around during her visit to North Korea.

Most Chinese tourists enter by train through Sinjiju or by plane through Pyongyang. She instead traveled to Russia so she could access the port at Tumangang.

The train ride from Tumangang to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, lasts a day. It was canceled because of a dispute between North Korea and South Korea.

We're all familiar with them — foods we think are healthy because we heard them somewhere on the news or from a health-conscious friend. And no matter how much we may dislike them, we just keep buying them because we think they're good for us.

Take swapping your dairy milk for almond milk. Is liquid from nuts really nutritionally superior to milk from a cow?

Or splurging on pink Himalayan sea salt. Healthy habit or a little bit of nonsense

We asked Andy Bellatti, a registered dietitian and the co-founder of the group Dietitians for Professional Integrity, for advice on what "health foods" are worth eating and which aren't.

The answers to these questions might surprise you.

Have some we missed? Send them along to science(at)businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: What the author of 'Eat Fat, Get Thin' eats — and avoids — every day

DON'T MISS: 11 common myths about the brain that need to be smashed

Multivitamins

Close to half of American adults take vitamins every day. Yet decades' worth of research hasn't found any justification for our pill-popping habit.

That isn't to say we don't need small amounts of vitamins to survive — without vitamins like A, C, and E, for example, we have a hard time turning food into energy and can develop conditions like rickets or scurvy. Here's the thing: Research shows we get more than enough of these substances from what we eat, so no need for a pill!

Almond butter

Everything from Gwyneth Paltrow's daily breakfast smoothie to the grocery store around the corner now seems to contain almond butter, but the stuff is incredibly pricey.

So we asked Andy Bellatti, a registered dietitian and the co-founder of the group Dietitians for Professional Integrity, what the harm was in substituting almond butter for plain old peanut butter, which is roughly four times cheaper. "It can just be peanut butter!" says Bellatti. "If the only ingredients are peanuts and salt, that totally works. It's still going to have your protein, healthy fats, and vitamin E."

Juice

When you juice fresh fruits and veggies, you remove all of their fiber, the key ingredient that keeps you feeling full and satisfied until your next meal.

What you keep is the sugar. In the short term, a high-sugar, low-protein diet means constant hunger pangs, mood swings, and low energy. In the long term, you can lose muscle mass since muscles rely on protein.

Jennifer Gelman, a fitness fanatic, has four sons under the age of nine, and has managed to incorporate them into her workout routines.

Story and editing by Alana Yzola

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David Barton, the fitness entrepreneur best known for his health clubs that resemble nightclubs, opened what may be New York City's most high-tech gym on Tuesday, March 23, in Midtown Manhattan. Dubbed "TMPL", the gym is decked out with state-of-the-art equipment — smart cardio machines, a 25-meter salt water pool, an IMAX-esque virtual reality spin studio, and dramatic lighting in Barton's signature style. 

A TMPL membership includes access to an app that gym-goers can use to craft the perfect workout for their body type. The app allows you to scan barcodes onto the "smart equipment", which will then create an entire workout based on your metabolic profile. 

This is a new gym concept from Barton. It puts a strong focus on metabolic science and medical technology, which brings a more personalized experience for each member.

This isn't Barton's first time revolutionizing the fitness world. In 1991, he founded DavidBartonGym, a gym empire inspired by nightlife and clubbing. That aesthetic has greatly influenced the personal fitness world as a whole.

TMPL, pronounced "temple", is his first major endeavor since 2013, when he left DavidBarton Gym because he decided he needed a break after 22 years of running a company.

Business Insider recently stopped by TMPL — here's what we saw. 

SEE ALSO: How the founder of ClassPass — a startup that motivates thousands of people to work out regularly — stays in shape

TMPL is located on 49th Street in Manhattan and stretches nearly 40,000 square feet. Inside, you'll find over 150 exercise machines.

Dramatic lighting is Barton's signature feature. His goal is to create a fun and exciting gym experience that will make you want to come back again and again. The colorful lighting is paired with loud, intense music, and sometimes DJs will even play a live set.

TMPL is Barton's first gym with a technology-focused design. "Everything in your life is getting smarter, except gyms," Barton told Business Insider. "I think people should expect that when they go to the gym, they use science and technology to create efficiencies to how one gets in shape."

Professional landscape photographer Grant Kaye has spent hundreds of nights under the stars, capturing the night sky — and teaching others how to do it, too.

Between the weather, lunar, solar, and milky way conditions, stars can be a difficult thing to capture, but Kaye has become familiar with the best spots to go stargazing and capture the spectacular sights.

From Hawaii to Lake Tahoe, Kaye has some serious knowledge on where to head if you want a star-filled night sky.

Ahead, Kaye's top five all-time favorite locations to view the incredible universe.   

SEE ALSO: 12 vintage photos that show what New York City's 'forgotten borough' looked like in the 1980s

1. Alaska: If you want to witness the Aurora Borealis — a natural light phenomenon caused by charged particles colliding into Earth's atmosphere — you have to go to Alaska, Kaye says. "It really is a completely unparalleled spiritual experience that I cannot recommend enough," he told Business Insider.

While the entire state has good Aurora Borealis viewing, the town of Fairbanks has been noted to have some of the most fantastic sights. This image was captured at The Lodge at Black Rapids, just two and a half hours southeast of Fairbanks. "Alaska will always be a favorite place to shoot at night," Kaye said.

2. Black Rock Desert, Nevada: "I love shooting in this location because it is remote, mysterious, and has one of the darkest skies in all of North America," Kaye said.

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The packaged Choco Taco of your youth is getting a makeover.

Secretly nestled inside the Garret East in NYC, a new restaurant called Dinnertable is serving a sophisticated version of the dessert called a Taco Cioccolato.

Pastry chef Adam Richardson has created a Nutella brownie and espresso gelato-stuffed cookie taco that may just surpass the Klondike original.

Story by Aly Weisman, video by Ben Nigh

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Apple's Siri voice assistant is one of the most widely available bots in the world. Most people with an iPhone can ask it questions with the push of a button, and over the years, Apple has used that data to improve Siri. 

Still, there are definitely still some very common questions that Siri, on its own, wouldn't have the answer to. Although Siri uses advanced machine learning to parse your questions, its artificial intelligence is not advanced enough to come up with clever responses to abstract questions. So Apple has clearly enlisted a few writers to come up with canned responses to common Siri queries.

Apple's not the only company to write specific responses for its bot. When Microsoft introduced its new chat bot Tay, it used comedy writers to make sure its dialogue sparkled. 

But sometimes, the funniest answers from an AI assistant are the ones that nobody could have anticipated.

Here are some of Siri's best gags:

SEE ALSO: The 12 best hidden features in the new iPhone update

Siri can only answer your questions. Ask it something open-ended, and you're likely to get a funny quip.

Press a little harder, and Siri will simply encourage you to recycle.

Sometimes, Siri slips a joke in before answering your question. Ask it to find a podiatrist, and it's got a quip.

Carved candles are made from different colors of wax, layered over each other. But making sure the wax layers don't crack or blend into each other requires making sure that the wax is at the perfect temperature for each step of layers. The result turns out to be a combination of racing and art.

Thanks to our friends at Science Channel for sharing this footage with us. "How It's Made" airs Thursdays at 9 p.m.

Story by Jacob Shamsian, editing by Stephen Parkhurst

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A bulldozer company knocked down two homes in Texas by accident because the address was displayed incorrectly in Google Maps.

Produced by Emma Fierberg

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Traveling by private jet is the pinnacle of wealth and luxury. We already took a look at the much-anticipated $66.5 million G650— the Cadillac of jets with all the bells and whistles. 

But for the more frugal private jet enthusiast, the HondaJet is priced at a comparatively low $4.5 million — the Honda Civic of jets if you will. 

Produced by Justin Gmoser and Benjamin Zhang

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In 2014 Maria De La Croix, 29, started a chain of tricked-out coffee carts.  She's now the CEO of Wheelys, an international coffee chain serving organic coffee in an eco-friendly way.

Story and editing by Carl Mueller.

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Seiji Cataldo is blowing up on Instagram for his mesmerizing calligraphy videos. The 23-year-old has been practicing this ancient art for only two years.

Story and editing by Chelsea Pineda

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When Magination was put on Kickstarter last year, it took 50 minutes to reach its fundraising goal. Like LEGOs, the toys can be used for unlimited combinations. They're shipping now, and prices for sets start at $40.

Story by Jacob Shamsian and editing by Ben Nigh

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Since the explosion of smartphone and tablet sales in the past decade, you may have started to hear more about "blue light" and how staring at a screen before bedtime can make it hard to fall asleep.

To get a better sense of "blue light" and what it means for your sleep, we spoke to a medical school professor and fellow at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine who explained the benefits and potential pitfalls that come with reducing your blue light intake. 

His message was that although reducing the amount of blue light in your life will do your body good, doing so while increasing the amount of time you spend with electronics before bed will make the benefits moot. It's like driving a four wheel drive car in the snow, the technology will help you in that situation, but shouldn't replace cautious driving.

As a longtime insomniac and gadget geek, I wanted to see how blue light was impacting my sleep, so I made a few big changes to my technology and my lifestyle over the course of a few months. The results have been incredible. My eyes no longer feel strained, and the amount of time it takes me to fall asleep has dropped sharply.

Blue light shouldn't be demonized, it's all around us — thanks sun! — but reducing it can't hurt. 

Change #1: I Installed F.lux on my computer

All the colors displayed on your computer's screen are a combination of red, green, and blue. F.lux is a software program that adjusts the color balance over the course of your day, slowly turning the dial down on blue colors while turning up the red and green. The results take a little getting used to — your screen takes on a saturated looking orange tinge, but that can be tweaked depending on how much blue light you want getting through. Considering how much time we spend in front of a computer if you're only able to make one change to reduce blue light F.lux is a good choice. 

Change #2 I Enabled blue light settings on my phone and tablet

F.lux hasn't yet made the jump to mobile, although in one case that's really not their choice, but that doesn't mean mobile developers haven't taken notice. Apple has chosen to bake blue light reduction directly into iOS through Night Shift, a setting that, like F.lux, reduces the amount of blue light your screen outputs over the course of your day. On Android, the Twilight app offers similar features. I've only had limited hands on time with Apple's Night Shift, but so far it feels like a nice improvement for all those late-night social media sessions. Apple is getting so aggressive about this that the 9.7 inch iPad Pro has a "true tone" display which changes your screen's screen tone depending on the light temperature in the room.

Change #3 I bought blue light reducing glasses 

Searching "blue light glasses" on Amazon will bring up a ton of results, and if you're committed to reducing your blue light intake at all times these special specs can be a sound investment. Most aren't fashion-focused, and are meant to be used in the evening, the time when reducing blue light is shown to help the most. Tokyo-based eyemaker JINS took a different approach: make a line of glasses that only reduces 25% of blue light, and make them look like an average pair of glasses. This line of glasses, called JINS 'Screens' are useful because it's not always possible to install software like F.lux on a work computer, which is the screen many of us stare at for a majority of the day. I've gone through stretches of wearing and not wearing them to see if I could tell the difference and my eyes were definitely more strained during the periods where I didn't wear them. JINS Screens are available in both prescription and non perscription variations and a couple of different frame styles.

It might not help you that much but it's worth a try

Those are the three changes I made, and although they made a difference the best way to lower your blue light exposure is to put down any device with a screen on it. But that's becoming more difficult whether for work or play, so reducing blue light any way you can is the next best thing. This isn't a problem that will be going away any time soon, so it wouldn't be surprising to see more companies take it into consideration. 

SEE ALSO: We asked a sleep scientist if the iPhone's new Night Shift feature will actually help you sleep, and his answer surprised us

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There's no question that Steve Jobs was a visionary and a genius. But, like others of his ilk, he was also known to be difficult, headstrong and argumentative.

Photographer Doug Menuez was granted unprecedented access to Jobs, working with him from 1986 to 1988 to document Steve Jobs' other company, NeXT and photographing him some more when he returned to Apple. 

Menuez went on to photograph other powerful figures of Silicon Valley, as well.

Those 250,000 photographs became the basis of the book "Fearless Genius," along with a documentary and traveling exhibit.

Menuez told Inc. that one of the lessons he learned from Jobs was how to command respect.

As a photographer, he "tried to be a fly in the wall and not engage with Steve," he said. But in the three years they hung out together "We had one really big fight where he tried to stop me from doing a portrait the way I wanted to do it," he said. 

"It was an interesting experience because I had seen him in direct confrontations with engineers for [over] two years," he said. 

He learned from watching those fights that he had to "be confident." Jobs wanted people to "argue back." So Menuez "fought back and I won the argument, actually."

The experience taught him that when working with a genius, you have to be "confident" and "do your homework" so "you are willing to die for those ideas."

If you aren't that confident, "you'll be crushed like a bug on a windscreen."

On the other hand, no one, not even a genius, is always right about everything.

"Every genius has a blind spot," Menuez says and that's when your knowledge is equally powerful. "You've got something to offer, something of value yourself."

Here's the full story of the argument, told by Menuez to Inc.

SEE ALSO: Steve Jobs' reality-distortion field has finally run out of juice

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An animated video that emerged online and was first spotted by Gizmodo shows various earthquake-proof bed designs that are scarier than an earthquake itself.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Stephen Parkhurst

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Wearable tech startup Ringly is best known for its line of cocktail rings, which wearers can customize to discreetly notify them whenever they get a call, text message, or notification from a supported app.

Each 18-carat gold-plated ring has a precious gem and can light up or vibrate according to your personal preferences. The ring connects via Bluetooth to an app made for both iOS and Android. 

But the company announced Tuesday it's launching a new product category: bracelets.

The Aries bracelet collection incorporates the same notification technology into a gold-plated bracelet with one of four gemstones: lapis, tourmalated quartz, rainbow moonstone, and labradorite. 

"The number-one thing we were hearing from people is that they liked the idea of Ringly, but that they didn't wear a ring every day," Ringly founder and CEO Christina Mercando d'Avignon told Business Insider. "Our vision is to have different products to match different lifestyles."  

The bracelet is offered in the four gemstones that were most popular in the original Ringly. The company sources all of its gems directly from Jaipur, India, and each one looks a little bit different.

Behind each gem is a complex set of technology — accelerometer, Bluetooth LE, motor, and LEDs — made as discreet as possible. 

"We're targeting women in both style and functionality," d'Avignon said. "We envision this being a way to make life easier for women, for them to stay connected without having to keep their phones out or have to fumble around for their phone in their purse." 

Ringly products can currently connect to more than 100 different apps, including Uber, Slack, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. The bracelet's battery will last two to three days on a full charge, depending on how many apps you sync with it. It comes with a custom stand for charging. 

The new bracelets will also have a step-tracking feature, which Ringly's first line of rings did not include. Fitbit, d'Avignon said, has been the most-commonly integrated fitness app on Ringly products so far. Now wearers will be able to count their steps and monitor their caloric intake directly on the Ringly app. 

The startup of 15 people is also working on a new partnership with Mastercard that will make it possible for wearers to make payments with their ring or bracelet. 

Preorders begin Tuesday, and bracelets are expected to ship this summer. It will retail for $275 (slightly more expensive than the $195 rings), but preorders will be discounted at $195. The first 1,000 people to order will also get a diamond on the side of the bracelet, where the notification light shines through.   

Ringly has raised $7 million in venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, and High Line Ventures. The company declined to share exactly how many rings they've sold, saying only that it has been "tens of thousands". Ringly did $100,000 in sales on its first day of business in June 2014. 

SEE ALSO: How the goddaughter of Prince Charles ditched England to run her own business in the Bahamas

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Despite popular belief, the best high-school education doesn't always come from a private school. In fact, several of America's best public high schools offer top-level academics — without the five-figure tuition cost.

Niche, a company that researches and compiles information on schools, recently released its 2016 ranking of the best public high schools in America, from which it also ranked the schools with the best academics— the smartest public schools in America.

Niche ranked the schools' academics by key factors like graduation rates, performance on SAT/ACT and Advanced Placement tests, and student and parent reviews for 23,861 public high schools across the US. You can read the full methodology here.

Read on for the 50 smartest public high schools in the US.

SEE ALSO: The best public high school in every state

AND: The 25 best school districts in America

50. Monta Vista High School

Location: Cupertino, California

Average SAT score: 2130

AP test pass rate: 87.2%

"Very hard academics in terms of teacher standards, so that inevitably pushes you to become a better student," said one alum. 

"There is a very huge presence of AP/honors classes, and a huge student-preference towards math and science-type classes," commented another.

49. Carroll Senior High School

Location: Southlake, Texas

Average SAT score: 1940

AP test pass rate: N/A

"Carroll is academically challenging at first but you get used to the workload," said one Niche user. "There are a lot of different elective options and its pretty common to get all the classes you want."

48. Indian Hill High School

Location: Cincinnati

Average SAT score: 1920

AP test pass rate: 83.2%

Many Indian Hill students complimented the school's educators. "The teachers are amazing. Our counselors are always available to help us whenever a problem arises: teacher conflicts, schedules, or just general problems," said a senior.