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There’s a glaring security problem with those new credit card chips


Yes, cargo shorts really are that bad — here's what you should wear instead

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cargo shorts

We at Business Insider rail against cargo shorts — a lot. But it's for a good reason.

Cargo pocketed shorts are the single worst item a man can wear in the summer. Yes, we're willing to go that far. We feel that strongly about it.

Many men are finally understanding that cargo shorts are a scourge, and are buying fewer of them.

Market-research firm NPD Group told the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that sales of the derided shorts have fallen over the past year. That marks the first time sales have fallen in the last decade, the group says.

This is a turning point in the debate over the late '90s fashion staple that has proved much more resilient than most. Though the shorts enjoyed popularity through the 2000s and the first half of 2010, they became increasingly out of fashion with every passing year.

Still, there are many diehards who consider the cargo short a away of life. They consider cargo shorts useful, comfortable, and all-around fine — but they're really none of those things.

The first issue is this: a gentleman does not wear shorts that cover the knees. Some claim a gentleman never wears shorts at all. We wouldn't go that far, but if you're covering your knees, you're not bold enough to be a man in shorts in the first place. 

Most (all) cargo shorts are at least 11 or 12 inches long, which will cover the knees, creating a silly, imbalanced look that pretty much ruins the whole point of wearing shorts to begin with.

The second issue is the actual cargo pockets themselves.

What are you even putting in those pockets? You're not a carpenter. You don't need space for a level. If you think you need those pockets, let me ask you this: why is a four-pocket pant fine most of the time, but a four-pocket short isn't?

If you're still looking for places to keep extra items, there's always the possibility of carrying a bag with you. You know, like everyone else.

If the only issue was a few extra pockets, that would be one thing. But unfortunately, the extra pockets add considerable weight and bulk to the shorts, dragging them down even further from your hips. They also completely ruin whatever silhouette you might have on the sides of your legs, completely unbalancing you in a way that can't be saved.

In effect, this creates a juvenile look no matter how old you actually are.

shortsBut there is a solution that goes by the name of chino shorts. They're pocket-less, generally shorter, and just all around slimmer and more flattering. And they're not any less comfortable, either.

Just take a look at the picture above to see the difference between the two. To the left is the cargo shorts Gap inexplicably still sells ($59.99), compared with a pair of J.Crew chino shorts ($69). It's clear which one has cleaner lines, and which one makes the wearer look like an adult.

Many, many other brands make chino shorts, likely including whatever brand you bought your terrible cargo shorts from.

Make the right choice.

SEE ALSO: American men are finally buying fewer pairs of cargo shorts

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9 of the biggest myths about mosquitoes, debunked

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Mosquito myths INTRO 21There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to controlling mosquitoes.

Despite what you may have heard, the food you eat won't affect your chances of being bitten, and neither will buying a bunch of citronella candles.

To help you separate fact from fiction, we spoke to Dr. Stan Cope, president of the American Mosquito Control Association and the director of entomology and regular services at Terminix.

From what types of repellents actually work to why the bloodsuckers bite you in the first place, here's the scoop on mosquitoes.

SEE ALSO: A Dubai-based expat who has been to 76 countries shares what it's like to travel the world for work

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Mosquito_Eating

People often say that eating foods with garlic or high percentages of Vitamin B can help lower your chances of being bit, but Cope says there is no scientific evidence to support this claim.

In reality, how attracted a mosquito is to you can depend on factors like how much carbon dioxide you omit or how quick your metabolism is.



mosquito_candle

According to Cope, there is no scientific evidence to show that citronella candles actually repel mosquitoes. Any repelling is typically coming from the smoke they produce, but once you have any wind, you easily lose protection. 



Mosquito_Mint

Plants will not repel simply by growing or being planted in the yard, but they will create more places for mosquitoes to rest, since the insects are attracted to cool, dark, and moist areas.

Some plants contain essential oils that do repel insects, but you need to crush or burn them for the repelling to work. 



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13 hobbies that could make you a better employee

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A man painting by himself

Naturally, we often focus a lot of our attention on what we can do within the confines of work to be better at our jobs.

But recent research out of San Francisco State University shows that we may be better employees if we use our time outside of work wisely, as well.

After conducting studies on employees who self-rated or were rated by coworkers on job performance, the researchers concluded that people with creative hobbies outside of work feel more relaxed and in control in their off hours and are more likely to be helpful to coworkers and creative in their approach solving work problems than those without these hobbies.

One study found that employees who reported engaging fairly often in creative hobbies also had a 15% to 30% edge on occasional hobbyists when it came to performance rankings.

The researchers say it's possible that having a creative outlet could provide an opportunity to discover new skills, which could also be helpful in the workplace. They suggested that companies could even benefit from encouraging their employees to consider creative activities outside of work.

Based on Arthur Koestler's seminal work, "The Act Of Creation," creative hobbies involve the exploration of new cognitive pathways and the connection of previously unrelated thoughts. Many activities have the potential for being creative and could include:

SEE ALSO: 12 hobbies that look great on your résumé, and one that doesn't

SEE ALSO: Children who practice this hobby are more likely to be successful as adults

Dance

Dance often requires choreography, which involves designing sequences of steps and movements.



Cooking

While some cooks stick entirely to the recipe, others bring together various recipes and methods to construct their masterpieces.



Writing poetry

The researchers noted that writing poetry likely results in the improvement of one's ability to articulate thoughts, and a skill that may spill over into the workplace.



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The 25 best STEM high schools in the US

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thomas jefferson high school for science and technology

Jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math are booming in the US — and average salaries for STEM jobs are nearly twice the national average.

It's no surprise, then, that high schools across the country are ramping up their emphasis on teaching STEM skills.

U.S. News & World Report recently released its list of the best high schools in America, gathering data on more than 21,000 public schools across the country. It also separately highlighted the best STEM high schools.

The overall ranking measures high schools by graduation rates, college readiness, and how well students at each school performed statistically compared to others in their state. The college readiness score — out of a possible 100 — measures which schools produce the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of students, using AP and IB scores as benchmarks. You can read the full breakdown of the methodology here.

The U.S. News STEM index, which awards a score out of 100 to the top 500 high schools in the country, is determined by the percentage of students who took and passed Advanced Placement tests in STEM subjects.

Read on for the 25 best high schools in the country for learning science, technology, engineering, and math:

SEE ALSO: 50 smartest public schools in America

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No. 25. Pine View School

Location: Osprey, Florida

Enrollment: 2,180

STEM index: 85.9

College readiness: 100

Graduation rate: 100%

 



No. 24. Solon High School

Location:Solon, Ohio

Enrollment: 1,705

STEM index: 86

College readiness: 60.9

Graduation rate: 98%



No. 23. Darien High School

Location: Darien, Connecticut

Enrollment: 1,354

STEM index: 86.3

College readiness: 56.3

Graduation rate: 98%



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6 ways America’s national parks have dramatically impacted the history of science over the last century

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shutterstock_47311708 (1)On August 25, 2016, the U.S. National Park Service will celebrate its 100th birthday.

From the founding of the first park — Yellowstone— to today, the park service has protected and preserved large swaths of wilderness, from shorelines to mountain ranges, as well as myriad of historic sites and monuments. And today, the park system expands across 84 million acres, covering 412 sites.  

Over the last century, these parks are, and have always been, vital to science by providing living laboratories for research in some of the most intact natural landscapes in the world. In addition, because these natural sites have been managed and studied for nearly a century, there is a huge wealth of archival scientific data available to researchers working in the parks today.

To find out more about the role that national parks have played in the history of science, Business Insider spoke to Timothy Watkins, a climate change science and education coordinator at the National Park Service who is working with the US Geological Survey to draw attention to the scientific value of parks. Here are just a few national sites that have been instrumental.

SEE ALSO: 12 rare animals that are teetering on the brink of extinction

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Yellowstone National Park

Renown for being America’s first National Park, Yellowstone is also the site where microbiologist Thomas Brock discovered an interesting bacterium living in the park’s hot springs. This bacterium, which Brock named Thermus aquaticuswas able to survive in waters that were 80 degree Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit).

“That was just absolutely astonishing because nobody thought that anything could live at that temperature,” Watkins told Business Insider. “It revolutionized our understanding of the way life had evolved [to] survive in extreme environments.”

After Brock made his discovery, other scientists studying this bacteria found that it is an important, stable source of the enzyme DNA polymerase, which allows DNA strands to replicate. “They realized that you could use that thermally stable DNA polymerase to do some very important engineering and chemistry in the lab,” Watkins said, and researchers, who later won the Nobel Prize in 1983, developed a technique using this enzyme, called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which is used in medical and biological research to amplify copies of a segment of DNA.

“But it all started with a bacterium that was found in Yellowstone National Park,” Watkins said.



Isle Royale National Park

Isolated in the middle of Lake Superior, Isle Royale National Park is a rugged, small island, and it was also here that, in 1958, wildlife biologist Durward Allen began doing some some incredibly important research on the predator-prey relationship of wolves and moose. This project has continued ever since, with scientists returning every year to count the populations of these two animals, and today, this research project is the longest continuous study of any predator-prey system in the world.

“It’s really important field ecological data on real live populations out in the wild that has produced a data set that is just incomparable,” Watkins said. “[It] has informed and confirmed certain models of populations of predators and prey relationships in ecology that were derived from mathematical models or studies of bacteria or very small organisms in the lab … and a lot has been learnt from the predator-prey relationships, as well as the influence of disease and climate change.”

Durward Allen is largely considered a pioneer among ecologists for initiating the Isle Royale wolf-moose project and having the insight to understand the value of continuing to observe a site long after others would have moved on to study something different. “That work really became canonized and is in every introductory textbook on the market now,” Watkins added.



Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument

Located just north of Las Vegas, Nevada, Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument is the site where nuclear physicist Willard Libby field-tested his technique of Carbon-14 dating.

Libby, who had been a part of the Manhattan Project, developed this technique of Carbon-14 dating, also called radiocarbon dating, after World War II. Carbon-14 is an isotope of carbon that decays naturally, so Libby realized that it is possible to measure its concentration in an object and compare it to other isotopes of carbon in order to calculate the object’s age.

He had developed the method of carbon-14 dating in the lab and tested it on some museum specimens, but the first time Libby actually used the technique in the field was on Pleistocene-era mammal fossils in Tule Springs, and his results showed that these mammal fossils were 30,000 years older than any human presence in the area.

“He provided evidence that falsified the hypothesis that humans were killing and cooking those mammals,” Watkins explained.

Libby’s work on Carbon-14 dating won him the Nobel Prize in 1960, and today the site of his research is protected by the National Park Service as a national monument.



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The entire history of the world in one chart

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The Vault is Slate's history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here.

This “Histomap,” created by John B. Sparks, was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931.

The David Rumsey Map Collection hosts a fully zoomable version here.

This giant, ambitious chart fit neatly with a trend in nonfiction book publishing of the 1920s and 1930s: the “outline,” in which large subjects (the history of the world! every school of philosophy! all of modern physics!) were distilled into a form comprehensible to the most uneducated layman.Histomap

The 5-foot-long Histomap was sold for $1 and folded into a green cover, which featured endorsements from historians and reviewers. The chart was advertised as “clear, vivid, and shorn of elaboration,” while at the same time capable of “holding you enthralled” by presenting:

the actual picture of the march of civilization, from the mud huts of the ancients thru the monarchistic glamour of the middle ages to the living panorama of life in present day America.

The chart emphasizes domination, using color to show how the power of various “peoples” (a quasi-racial understanding of the nature of human groups, quite popular at the time) evolved throughout history.

It’s unclear what the width of the colored streams is meant to indicate. In other words, if the Y-axis of the chart clearly represents time, what does the X-axis represent? Did Sparks see history as a zero-sum game, in which peoples and nations would vie for shares of finite resources? Given the timing of his enterprise — he made this chart between two world wars and at the beginning of a major depression — this might well have been his thinking.

Sparks followed up on the success of this Histomap by publishing at least two more: the Histomap of religion (which I’ve been unable to find online) and the Histomap of evolution.

SEE ALSO: The latest sign that Silicon Valley has conquered the world

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17 of the most bizarre conventions in America


These Silicon Valley 'biohackers' are fasting their way to longer, better lives

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wefast silicon valley fasting club 0540

Breakfast on Wednesday morning is engineer Paul Benigeri's favorite meal of the week. Why? "I haven't eaten in 60 hours," Benigeri tells Business Insider in a sunlit café in San Francisco, after clearing through a frittata with no spinach and extra goat cheese.

Benigeri and his coworkers at Nootrobox, a subscription service for "smart drugs," or cognition-enhancing supplements, are part of a Bay Area group of biohacking enthusiasts called WeFast. The club believes that intermittent fasting promotes longevity, increases focus and productivity, and leads to a healthier diet.

I recently attended the group's weekly breakfast to find out the appeal of starving yourself.

SEE ALSO: Most Americans are freaked out by brain chips and synthetic blood

The first rule of WeFast is, you eat as soon as your food hits the table.



The group meets every Wednesday morning at an Italian counter-service restaurant. By the time they sit down to break the fast, most members of the group, which formed in 2015, haven't eaten in about 36 hours.



Intermittent fasting is a nascent Silicon Valley fad in which people go without food for anywhere from 14 hours to several days. It's increasingly popular among startup workers.



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A couple quit their high-paying corporate jobs to go on an epic 38,000-mile, 16-month road trip

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sprintervandiaries - salt flats

Many people fantasize about quitting the rat race and exploring the world, but few actually have the guts to do it.

Nikki Levi and Jakob Celnik, graduates of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, quit their well-paying corporate jobs, bought a van, and drove 38,000 miles across the Americas.

Their journey lasted 16 months and took them across Canada and down the West Coast of California, through Central and South America, and down to Ushuaia, Argentina, an area also known as the "end of the earth."

Levi worked at Citigroup in New York as a high-yield credit-research analyst for four years before moving to Apple. Celnik worked at the Blackstone Group, also in New York, for almost three years before moving over to Soros Fund Management.

"While leaving our jobs, we were terrified," Levi told Business Insider.

"How can you leave finance? I mean the money ... that's all there is to live for right?" she joked.

"But in hindsight, we shouldn't have been ... We cannot buy time, so we try to enjoy the time we do have doing the things we love, with the people and animals we love," she said.

Levi, Celnik, and their dog, Leika, set off on the adventure of a lifetime in May 2014. Here's what their journey was like:

They bought a used 2008 Dodge Sprinter 2500 high-roof van, with a 144-inch wheelbase, and with about 90,000 miles on the clock.

It was completely empty when they bought it. With little carpentry, mechanics, or construction experience, it was a process of trial and error to figure out what exactly to build and how to build it. They figured out a budget and tried to learn as much as they could by reading guides like the Sprinter forum and the Sprinter conversion sourcebook.



The bed frame was one of the first things they built.

First, they needed to figure out the layout of the floor plan for their van build. They chose a Sprinter with a 144-inch wheelbase and high roof because its length allowed for parking in regular parking spots, while its roof was high enough for both to stand up — even Celnik at 6 feet 2 inches.



Then they worked on the storage units.

Since the space inside the van was so small, everything had to be precisely measured.

They managed to fit storage cabinets close to the bed for clothes, books, and toiletries and deeper cabinets at the end of the bed.

There are no straight lines in the van, except for the bed platform itself, and all four walls are shaped differently. They had to get creative.



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This woman founded three startups and learned her most valuable trait: being naive

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21_Lifestyle__ROA_105

Rachel Blumenthal didn't set out to start three companies in a row, but now, she can't imagine doing anything else.

Along the way she learned one really valuable lesson about founding your own company: being naïve is not only OK, it's one of the best qualities in a founder. 

"Naïveté is a strength because it enables you to say, ‘I don’t care what people say, I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to prove them wrong,'" Blumenthal told Business Insider.

"I think that entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because they’re just so passionate about what they do. There’s no work-life balance, it’s a pure work-life immersion."

Blumenthal's latest venture is Rockets of Awesome, which launched last week,and like her last one, it's designed to make parents' lives easier. 

The concept behind Rockets of Awesome is familiar — a subscription service that regularly delivers boxes of clothes — but this company is a bit different. Unlike Bombfell or StitchFix, the clothes are designed by Rockets of Awesome itself, and they're for kids. 

A fashion industry veteran and the wife of Warby Parker founder Neil Blumenthal, Rachel Blumenthal felt she was always compromising between stylish clothes for her kids and value. She hopes Rockets of Awesome will solve that need by delivering stylish clothes every three months to kids sized 2 to 14 — about ages 18 months to 11 years old. Parents pay for the clothes they keep and send back the ones they don't want. 

"There is this frequency, and this endless frequency, of needing to shop for kids because they’ve outgrown their clothes, and they honestly just destroy them," Blumenthal told Business Insider. "We didn’t see that there was a brand in the market that could deliver style and value and quality so we wanted to do it ourselves."

 

One more thing that makes being a serial entrepreneur easier? Having a super supportive fellow entrepreneur as a partner. 

"I feel so fortunate that my husband is in the same world, so he gets it better than anybody," Blumenthal said. "He and I are the last people to nag each other because we appreciate it more than anyone. It’s so valuable to be able to say, ‘What do I do in this situation?’ or ‘Has this ever happened to you?’ or ‘Do you know this person, can you connect me?’ We just have such shared experiences so we can really related to each other. 

"It’s just so hard and it really consumes your life and you need a partner who supports it."

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It only took one genuinely original idea for Andy Warhol to become a famous artist

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Andy Warhol

It seems to me that as an artist, Andy Warhol was a remarkably talented and ingenious man who in his entire public lifetime had one, and only one, genuinely original idea.

And in his hands, that idea became a tremendously interesting one. Warhol played with it in many ways and in various media, including film. It assumed a hundred different faces.

The concept consisted of one deeply absorbing insight into something that I shall call here visual power. What counts instead is the images’ power, what a given image is capable of exerting over the mind.

So far as I can determine, this concept fell into place in Warhol’s mind somewhere around the time he turned 30 and the country entered that decade of convulsion that began with the inauguration of John Kennedy. Until that time Warhol had been a commercial artist in Manhattan; he was somebody whose task it was to make things look interesting, make them look pretty. By 1960 Warhol had spent 11 years at it; he had gotten to be very good at it.

But then a quality of self-discovery clicked into place. It transformed him and his entire life; it made him a gallery artist and a very famous one at that. It is worth recalling once again just how startling and suggestive his works once were, and how powerful they remain:

The Gold Marilyn (1962); the Disaster Series of 1963 and 1964 (works such as Five Deaths Eleven Times in Orange, Suicide, Purple Jumping Man, or Saturday Disaster); his “portraits” of the electric chair; The Triple Elvis (1963); and among the films, Kiss (1963), Sleep (1963), and The Chelsea Girls (1967).

Marilyndiptych

They stop us on the spot; we recognize them instantly; they seize us as we sink into them. It is true that their primary impact is one of a perfectly astonishing visual immediacy. Of course time has worked its changes on that momentary immediacy.

We were not used to looking at Marilyn Monroe’s face in all its frank frontal immediacy, made at once more striking and more remote by Warhol’s transformations of color: the changes he could ring on that single face. But with the passage of time, and above all with Warhol’s death, the interplay between distance and immediacy was complicated by the look of history.

andy warholAt the Museum of Modern Art’s major Warhol retrospective in 1989, I was surprised to discover how authoritatively his work held up, how well it had survived its author. Not only did the work look good, it looked good in a rather new way. How to describe it? Well, it looked “real,” it looked like “real art.”

What seemed strongest about it was its sumptuous visual presence, while the formal ingeniousness that had seemed at first so interesting had faded. It had picked up the patina of historical standing.

andy warhol maoOrdinarily when we look at a given image there is a certain passage of time required for primary comprehension. There are five, or maybe 15 seconds (30 would be a long time) during which the mind is simply identifying what it is seeing. In Warhol’s case, the time required for recognition is reduced to something instantaneous. We get it, always, right away.

These are some of the most famous faces in the world, Marilyn and Mao; these are the universal commonplaces of brand names or things universally known: the mushroom cloud, the electric chair.

The game here is power. The back and forth of Warhol’s work is always a subtly eroticized interplay of active and passive terms, a subdued encounter with energy. The distanced immediacy, the subdued potency of the work was precisely that of the man who could say, “My conflict is that I’m shy and yet I like to take up a lot of personal space.” And, “Once you see the emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again.”

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup CansBefore his death, a leading question among critics was whether Warhol’s work was art at all. The question deserves response, even more because Warhol’s reputation is hedged round by a discussion of art’s end. Yet one turns to it with a heavy heart.

It seems to me Warhol’s work is plainly art and moreover art of a very high order.

It is powerful and it retains its power. It speaks. It is interesting to look at and it is interesting to think about. It is linked to the principal questions that trouble and drive art in the 20th century. It is often beautiful and deep in its paradoxical distances.

Excerpted with permission of Open Road Media from Stargazer by Stephen Koch.

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Now is the best time to buy these incredibly popular winter snow boots

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Bean Boots

The legendary foul weather boot that pretty much everyone was trying to purchase last year is finally back in stock.

The boots — L.L. Bean's legendary Bean Boots — famously sell out every winter after having undergone a sharp popularity spike in recent years. 

In the winter of 2015, L.L. Bean sold approximately 450,000 boots — a new seasonal record. Over the winter of 2016, there were 100,000 back orders on Bean Boots, according to the Portland Press Herald

That 100,000 list has finally been whittled down to zero, and the company is now stockpiling boots for the upcoming winter demand. If you want your own pair to tackle whatever this winter has in store, it's best not to wait. If the past few years are any indication, these boots will sell out quickly.

What causes everyone to go nuts for these shoes? They're not trendy, and that's on purpose. In fact, L.L. Bean hasn't changed much of the design for decades. They're still handmade in Maine in a nearly identical way they were about 100 years ago.

Bean BootsHere are a few other reasons the boots have enjoyed a resurgence:

  • "Legacy" products are incredibly trendy now. Consumers, especially millennial consumers, can connect with history and a bulletproof track record — both of which the Bean Boot has in spades. L.L. Bean's founder, Leon Leonwood Bean, started selling his Maine Hunting Shoe back in 1911. That's where the Bean Boot is descended from.
  • Their slightly goofy aesthetic is back in style. The "normcore" Americana sensibility the boots give off, along with the aforementioned legacy, are both very "in" among many demographics, especially young urbanites.
  • The boots are an incredible value. The base model is only $99, and it comes with L.L. Bean's unconditional satisfaction guarantee. Bean's return policy even lets you bring back your boots anytime you want, for virtually any reason — no questions asked.
  • Speaking of bulletproof, that's exactly what Bean Boots are. They're well-known to be completely flawless from a functionality perspective. They are truly "buy it for life," and many owners see the boots perform for decades without need of replacement.

SEE ALSO: I tested LL Bean's legendary return policy by returning 4-year-old shoes

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The 15 best New York City neighborhoods to live in

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new york city

New York City boasts one of the most expensive costs of living in the country, making it the ultimate challenge to find a place to live.

Where you want to live — and where you can afford to live — depends on many factors. Neighborhoods vary in their perks and downfalls when it comes to price, commute distance, transportation access, nightlife, and other lifestyle amenities.

Niche, a company that compiles information on cities, recently released its annual ranking of the best neighborhoods in New York City.

The ranking determined the overall livability of a neighborhood by weighing factors such as education, cost of living, crime rates, housing trends, employment statistics, and access to amenities.

From historic to hip, these neighborhoods possess their own identities and can offer residents a sense of home in a city of over 8 million people.

Here are the 15 best New York City neighborhoods to live in:

SEE ALSO: The 25 best cities for millennials in America

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15. Hell's Kitchen

Population: 53,923

Hell's Kitchen, also known as Midtown West, was once a poor and working-class neighborhood that has steadily gentrified over a couple of decades. Because of its proximity to many Broadway theaters and the famed Actors Studio, the neighborhood became a popular area for aspiring actors. Hell's Kitchen boasts shorter commute times and offers a lively nightlife scene for its residents.



14. Flatiron District

Population: 13,196

Home to the Flatiron Building, one of the oldest skyscrapers in the city, at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, the Flatiron District features a great restaurant scene, upscale real estate, and an impressive stretch of shopping. It is increasingly known as a huge area for fitness clubs. The median rent for the neighborhood is a steep $1,901.



13. Greenwich Village

Population: 30,145

Greenwich Village possesses its own sense of character and charm within the city. The neighborhood has served as a home to the creative community, the LGBT movement, and New York University. The area has become a melting pot of its own, filled with bustling restaurants and venues, while keeping its small community feel.



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13 science-backed ways to appear more attractive

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DiCaprio_high-statusAttractiveness relies on much more than your physical appearance.

It's in the way you carry yourself, the folks you hang out with, and how you talk to people — plus a whole lot more.

Read on to find out what you can do to make yourself more appealing.

 

In that study, a psychologist asked three men to tell a joke to their friends at a bar while a woman sat at a nearby table. Then those men were instructed to approach the woman and ask for her number. After the man had left, an experimenter approached the woman and asked her to rate the man on attractiveness and intelligence and to indicate how much she would want to date the man long-term.

Results showed that the guys who told jokes were three times as likely to get the woman's number as the men who didn't. They were also rated more attractive and intelligent.

"The effect of a great sense of humor on women's attractions might be partially explained by the fact that funny people are considered to be more social and more intelligent, things that women seek in a mate," anthropologist Gil Greengross writes.



In one experiment featured in the study, 25 male and female undergrads looked at 300 photos of women's faces, once in a group photo and once in an isolated portrait. Another experiment repeated the same procedure with 18 undergrads looking at photos of men's faces. Results showed that participants rated both men and women significantly more attractive when they were pictured in a group.

"Having a few wingmen or wingwomen may indeed be a good dating strategy, particularly if their facial features complement and average out one's unattractive idiosyncrasies," study authors Drew Walker and Edward Vul write.



In a 1997 studyState University of New York psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues separated two groups of undergrads and paired them off, giving each duo 45 minutes to answer a set of questions. 

One question set was small talk, and the other was increasingly probing. The people who asked deeper questions felt more connected. One couple even fell in lovean intriguing, though probably insignificant, result.



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10 of the worst foods to eat on a first date, according to an etiquette expert

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awkward first date

First dates can be hard. You're nervous, you don't know what to wear, and you hope you haven't been Catfished. When you finally do settle on an outfit choice and head out to the restaurant, you're desperate to make a good first impression.

Luckily, things seem to be going well. Caught up in conversation, you order a spaghetti dish with marinara sauce before truly thinking through the consequences. When it arrives, you realize you've set yourself up for an additional challenge: the spaghetti strands aren't twirling well onto your fork, and you're being forced to slurp up stray, dangling ends that invariably leave a few drops of red sauce on your white shirt in the process. It's not a pretty sight. 

How can you avoid a situation like this? Perhaps if you had considered your menu choice a bit more, you would have saved yourself a whole lot of awkwardness. We spoke to international etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore to get an idea of the top foods to stay away from on a first date. Read on for her full list of messy meals that could turn your night from great to grim. 

SEE ALSO: How to dress for a date when it's miserably hot outside

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Anything with a red sauce

As mentioned above, red sauce can lead to all kinds of unsightly issues. Instead of marinara, it might be wise to go for a light cream sauce or a touch of oil — just be sure to spare the garlic. 



Lobster

This upscale dish may sound like a good idea, but the challenges involved in eating a full lobster are not ones you want to have to deal with on a first date. "Be mindful that someone else is watching your table manners," Whitmore said. It's not exactly easy to be graceful at the table when you're cracking, ripping, and digging your way through a tangle of lobster legs. 



Corn on the cob

This might seem like an obvious no-no, but the problem with corn is that it sometimes arrives as an unexpected side dish. Fortunately, you can side-step the horror of corn in your teeth in a few different ways: you can (politely) cut the corn off the cob, or just "eat everything except that," Whitmore advises. 



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This photojournalist visited a remote arctic research town — here are her stunning photos

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03_AFIn the Arctic Ocean, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, lies Ny-Ålesund, the most northerly settlement in the world.

Once a mining town, this island town on the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago is now home to the largest permanent laboratory for modern arctic scientific research in the world. Researchers living here conduct a number of environmental and earth science studies all year round. 

To keep the area surrounding the town largely untouched, access is limited and the town is mainly designed for scientists. But photojournalist Anna Filipova went to photograph life at this remote research station.

While this wasn’t the first arctic place that Filipova has visited and photographed — she has spent much of her career working on projects above the arctic circle — it is certainly the most northern spot in which she has ever worked, being located above the 79th parallel.  And this barren landscape was also one of the most wild places she had ever been to.

“It was with surprise and trepidation that I learned that I must pass a firearms safety course in order to venture out of the settlement in case of an encounter with a polar bear,” Filipova told Business Insider. Polar bears live and breed in Svalbard, according to the Norwegian Polar Institute, and in the summer, bears sometimes wander close or even into the settlement. “The community has a rule that no one can lock the doors of any building in case a bear appears inside the settlement and there is an urgent need for refuge.”

But despite the harsh environment and risk of polar bears, Filipova arrived home from Ny-Ålesund with the stunning photographs of her series "Research at the End of the World." Here are just a few of these images.

SEE ALSO: These 10 natural phenomena happen every summer on our planet

“The Arctic is one of the most fascinating places on earth, but also one of the most endangered,” Filipova said. “It is constantly moving and shifting, melting, reforming, appearing and disappearing.”



This is why the town of Ny-Ålesundit is such a prime location for scientists to observe and study post-global warming conditions. Even though the town is remote and far from human civilization, it is still threatened by polluted air from Europe and North America that is brought by atmospheric circulation.



“From the day I arrived, I was immediately fascinated,” Filipova said. “Everything in the settlement is designed to identify, assess, and track changes within the environment.”



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