When it was revealed earlier this month that Withings would require new users to subscribe to a Withings Plus subscription to sync heath data from the company's devices to third-party apps, Tom Anthony, who was already fed up with the Withings mobile app which they describe as a "bloated mess," became motivated to "free" their scales. Anthony's solution was to create an open-source project called YourOwnWeigh that reroutes your data away from Withings' servers so it can be wirelessly synced to other apps and platforms for free.

You can read more about the project on GitHub, where you'll also find quick-start guides on how to get YourOwnWeig …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The European Commission is telling capitals across the bloc to pause any national laws that restrict social media access to minors, as Brussels seeks an EU-wide set of rules.

But Austria, the first country told to halt its legislation Thursday, lashed out at the order.

“It is unacceptable for Brussels to block member states from enacting national laws without presenting a completed European solution of its own,” Austrian State Secretary Alexander Pröll told POLITICO.

The Commission and national capitals have been seeking age restrictions for social media over the past year, citing risks to young people’s mental health. But even after the EU proposed a unified law, different countries have continued pursuing different approaches and age limits.

In September, the EU proposed the Kids Act, which would set the same standard across the union, placing different limits on access for those under the age of 13, and for those under 15. But multiple capitals continued to legislate their own bans, as countries like Greece and Denmark have said they don’t want to wait for the EU-wide law to be negotiated and implemented.

“The Commission has decided to postpone for 12 months any draft national laws overlapping with the future harmonized rules,” the EU executive’s spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters Thursday.

Austria had asked the Commission back in July to check whether its own proposed law, which would ban access for under-14s, was in line with EU law. A deadline for the Commission to respond lapsed Thursday and the EU executive told them to pause adoption for a year, Regnier said.

“I have no sympathy for the European Commission’s delay of Austria’s social media ban,” Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Media Affairs Andreas Babler told POLITICO in a statement.

Austria will continue preparing its own legislation to get it ready for the end of the 12-month pause, said Babler. Vienna will “advance the legislative process at national level to ensure that the social media ban can be implemented immediately once the EU standstill period has expired,” he added.

“A European problem requires a united European response,” Regnier said. “We need to now focus on the negotiations of the EU Kids Act.”

The capitals have to negotiate with the EU Parliament and Commission to agree on the details of the Kids Act, so that it can then be implemented.

The Commission’s proposal would bar access to social media for minors under 13 in most cases and severely restrict access for teens under 15. It also sets requirement for safety by design on the platforms, including video games and AI companions.

The reaction of the other capitals to the order is not immediately clear.

Greece has already passed its own law for under-15s and will likely be able to keep it, simply because it went through the process prior to the EU proposal. Regnier declined to comment on specific countries other than Austria, but did say that there were “nuances” due to when Athens sent its law to the Commission for the compatibility check with EU rules.

Sebastian Starcevic contributed to this report. This article has been updated to include Austria’s reaction.

I don’t know about you, but I quite possibly have the world’s smallest social battery. I’m a great time…but only for a very short time. And once the energy drains from my body, I might as well be comatose, even if I’m in the middle of a crowded dance floor.

I’ve always been this way. In childhood, I’d come home from school and immediately race up to my room, decked with string lights and cozy pillows. I’d lock my door, cuddle up in my reader’s nook, and refuse to socialize until dinner.

In adulthood, I still find myself wanting to Irish-exit every party or event by 9 p.m. The phrase “go big or go home” has never made sense to me, as I will always choose the latter option.

That being said, not everyone has such a fragile, easily depleted social battery.

“Several factors influence the size of our social batteries,” says Whitney Polich, LICSW, trauma psychotherapist. “First, everyone’s is different, shaped by personality, biology, genetics, and social context. Introverts, people with chronic mental or physical illness, and people with interpersonally demanding jobs, for example, may find their batteries drain more often.”

Of course, even social butterflies need to recharge after too much time around others. Our social batteries might ebb and flow throughout lives as well, impacted by stress, burnout, certain types of interactions (large gatherings vs. 1:1 hangouts), changing seasons, and physical changes/health, Polich explains.

“The good news is that social batteries can be bolstered, and they can become more durable with practice,” she says.

According to Polich, here are three ways to make your social battery last as long as possible.

1. Check In With Yourself

You know what they say: If you don’t listen to your body, it will eventually scream to get your attention. You don’t want to wait until you’re sick, in pain, or completely depleted to finally rest.

“We often don’t realize we’re drained until we’re exhausted and burned out,” says Polich. “All too often, people come into my office well past the point of overwhelm, when they’ve already started to see an impact on their relationships.”

This is why it’s crucial to tune into your body’s signals and set boundaries to protect your energy.

“Periodically check in with how your body feels, especially when you’re deciding whether to accept a social invitation,” Polich says. “Simple questions can help, such as ‘How much energy is in my social battery today, on a scale from 0% to 100%?’”

2. Say No to What Drains You

As a small-social-battery person myself, I often have a hard time saying “no.” I feel obligated to do most things I’m asked, like grabbing dinner after work even though I’m exhausted from the day or attending yet another family party for the fourth weekend in a row, even though I desperately need some alone time outside of my workweek. I have a growing suspicion this is the root of my chronically low social battery—perhaps I can learn a thing or two from younger me.

“While we don’t always have a choice about our social interactions, we can use our batteries wisely, especially around interactions we find exceptionally draining,” says Polich. “Practice saying no to non-obligatory events, such as the optional workplace happy hour or a two-hour call with a chatty relative. Another helpful litmus test is to ask, ‘Am I doing this because I have the space, energy, and time, or because I feel like I should?’”

3. Find What Refills Your Battery

I know exactly what refills my social battery: staying in with a good book, ordering some takeout, practicing self-care, and spending a few nights all by myself.

“Everyone recharges differently,” Polich says. “Some people recharge in nature, through exercise, or in quiet. Others need to connect with new people or trusted loved ones. Whatever leaves you feeling grounded and rested is the right strategy for you.”

The post 3 Ways to Recharge Your Social Battery When You’re Constantly Feeling Drained appeared first on VICE.

Last year, I wrote about a 35-year-old man with worms swimming around in his eyeball. It sounds like the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen often, yet we are back here today with a similar case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, via Ars Technica. This time, our patient is a 71-year-old South Korean farmer who had mating worms in his eyes that had to be removed before they could give birth to larvae, which would’ve made matters significantly worse.

The farmer spent agonizing months bent over, feeling like something was stuck in his eyes. When ophthalmologists finally took a look, they found 11 roundworms on his conjunctiva that were eroding his corneal cells. The parasites were identified as Thelazia callipaeda, a species that usually infects dogs and cats but occasionally pops itself into human peepers.

Doctors Discovered 11 Worms in a Man’s Eye, and They Were About to Multiply

The thought of having a worm in your eye is bad enough, but these little guys are a nightmare: they first enter via a fly that lands near an eyeball, where the larva disembarks and makes itself at home.

They grow and then start hooking up with each other to propagate their disgusting species. If you remove them in time, they can give birth to a ton of larvae, and suddenly your problem goes from a few worms to dozens swimming around in your eye.

The doctors numbed the farmer’s eyes and then carefully plucked out 11 adult nematodes, some as long as 22 millimeters. When examined under a microscope, they found that the female worms were already pregnant and were in the middle of popping out larvae as they were being extracted.

Doctors removed the worms just in time, allowing the farmer to fully recover within two months.

The post Doctor Found 11 Parasitic Worms Living in a Man’s Eye (And Some Were Pregnant) appeared first on VICE.

If you let your dog lick your mouth, you’ll probably both swap plenty of nastiness, like bacteria and even parasites. But there is one particular parasite you won’t have to worry about swapping, because there’s a good chance you both share it. A team of researchers recently found there’s a parasite usually found in human mouths that one in six dogs may carry, too.

According to a study published in Veterinary Research Communications by scientists at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Poland, our beloved doggies are harboring Trichomonas tenax. This microscopic parasite hangs out between your gums and teeth, feeding on scraps and occasionally causing gross periodontal infections.

Researchers swabbed 238 house pets and discovered these oral squatters in 17 percent of dogs and nearly 6 percent of cats. Older dogs over nine years old and those sporting thick coats of disgusting tooth tartar were the most likely to host the parasite.

Your Dog Might Be Carrying a Human Mouth Parasite, According to New Research

How are dogs getting it? Probably from us, though the researchers could not say that definitively. But that makes the most sense, especially since all the infected cats in the study were strictly indoor kitties whose main contact with the outside world was through their owners. Dogs had even higher infection rates, which makes sense considering one of their primary modes of emotional expression is licking faces.

More research is needed before a definitive cause and effect can be established, but if it can be, then these trichomonads, which churn out all sorts of gross enzymes that break down collagen and destroy soft tissue, destroying your gums and your dogs’, we still need to figure out to what extent we are sharing this parasite.

The post Your Dog Might Be Carrying a Human Mouth Parasite. But Is It Dangerous? appeared first on VICE.

Maybe you’ve heard about psilocybin therapies wherein the psychedelic drug is prescribed to treat PTSD and severe depression. Well, researchers have been hard at work on something similar but with psychedelic toad venom.

The stuffy, cleanliness-obsessed medical world probably won’t ask you to pick up a toad you can lick from your CVS pharmacist, so researchers who published their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association say they’ve found a way to turn that depression-treating toad venom into an easy-to-use nasal spray.

5-MeO-DMT is a psychedelic derived from the Sonoran Desert toad. In a phase 2b trial involving 193 patients across the US, Europe, and Australia, researchers tested a synthetic version called mebufotenin benzoate. The study focused on patients with treatment-resistant depression, a condition affecting at least 30 percent of depressed individuals who seek to be impervious to the effects of antidepressants.

Scientists Are Testing a Toad Venom-Inspired Nasal Spray for Depression, and It Might Actually Work

The real benefit of a nasal spray, beyond convenience, is its speed. It’s a quick delivery system that goes right into your bloodstream, and the toad-derived spray lets most patients trip, recover, and get discharged within two hours. Yes, discharged, as it will have to do the therapy at a designated location while being observed because you will be high. But instead of the 6- to 12-hour vision quest you’ll go on when you drop acid. It’s an efficient trip that gets you back out in the world in two hours, with a little less depression.

A single dose of eight milligrams or 12 milligrams significantly reduced depressive symptoms over eight weeks, with remission rates reaching up to 26 percent at the one-month mark. It’s not a perfect system, and some kinks are going to need to be worked out, like how most participants reported mild side effects like nausea, headache, nasal pain, and one participant had severe panic attacks.

There’s also the fact that, according to psychopharmacology researcher Chittaranjan Andrade, who wrote an opinion piece based on the research, the average patient only became about 30 percent better, which some would probably take no matter what, but those are rates below what we see “with ketamine and electroconvulsive therapy,” according to Andrade.

Despite the concerns, the drug is still headed to Phase 3 trials.

The post Scientists Turned Toad Venom Into a Nasal Spray to Fight Depression. But Does It Work? appeared first on VICE.

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

From afar, it's easy to look back at the Theranos debacle and scream at Nathan Fielder that, obviously, Elizabeth Holmes is lying in You Can See Everything. In the weeks since the movie's release, journalists and whistleblowers alike have rushed to remind moviegoers of Holmes' numerous documented lies. Chief among the facts: The Theranos device never worked as advertised. But Fielder's aim with this film wasn't relitigating Ther …

Read the full story at The Verge.

In just 7 days, TechCrunch Founder Summit takes over Boston’s SoWa Power Station on November 4. Your chance to save up to $100 on tickets is running out, and the opportunity to learn and connect directly with experienced founders, investors, and startup leaders is almost here.

Six weeks after the EU unveiled its much-anticipated proposal to protect kids across the bloc from social media, European governments are pressing ahead with their own rules. 

National political leaders had spent months asking for unified age restrictions for social media access across the European Union, to avoid 27 different sets of rules. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s response came in September with the EU Kids Act, a signature initiative of her second term that would ban under-13s from accessing most current social media platforms and severely restrict access for under-15s. 

But it is becoming clear that individual countries don’t want to wait for the Brussels legislative wheels to turn — and in some cases, are proceeding with national laws that would kick even more kids off the platforms than what von der Leyen has in mind.  

“While we wait for the EU Kids Act – we are pushing forward with national legislation,” Denmark’s digital minister Christina Egelund said. “The problems are urgent. Children and parents should not be asked to wait.” 

Last week, Greece’s parliament passed a bill to bar social media access for under-15s, while Italy’s own stalled efforts to shield under-14s suddenly found new winds.  

By Thursday, the Commission will have to give the first indication of how it will deal with national laws. Its response to Austria’s proposal to bar social media access for under-14s will be the first test case.

Capitals continue to ultimately favor a unified EU law, which is in line with existing rules that give Brussels oversight of big platforms like Instagram and TikTok. A harmonized law also avoids fragmenting the market with different rules in different countries.  

Yet agreeing on a final text for the legislation and implementing the Kids Act will take more than a year — too long for national leaders eager to show they are serious about protecting the mental health of kids and reining in Big Tech. The age at which limits are set is also a sticking point, with countries preferring various thresholds between 13 and 16.  

“Greece decided to move forward with its own legislation on minors’ access to social media because protecting children is a pressing issue that calls for timely and concrete action,” a spokesperson for the country’s digital ministry said. “We have a responsibility to address an issue that is already affecting the daily lives of children and their families,” they said, adding that the Greek law is “complementary” to the EU’s and that Athens is still in favor of a bloc-wide solution.  

Portugal formally notified the Commission of its own law a little over a week after the Kids Act was proposed, formally asking the EU executive to say if Lisbon’s plans are in line with European rules. Cyprus’s ministers approved their own ban for under-15s on the day Brussels proposed its law. Austria and Germany have also not shown any signs of slowing down. Many of these countries had backed an EU-wide solution.  

The current trajectory could create a confusing situation for minors, who may find themselves locked out of social media in January 2027 only to then regain access under parental controls once the Kids Act is implemented later that year or in 2028. 

The Commission had stressed that the law would bring about “maximum harmonization,” meaning national laws would be scrapped if and when the EU-wide measures came into force.  

When France first formally informed the Commission of its national law to ban social media access for under-15s, “we said very clearly: you should be able, and you should be ready to repeal this law once there are European measures in place,” a senior Commission official told reporters when announcing the law in September.  

But a few weeks later, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told POLITICO that the EU executive was still considering how to respond to the laws that have been submitted to be checked for compatibility with European rules.  

The Kids Act will have to be negotiated between the Commission, the European Parliament and EU governments, meaning it may not be finalized for months. It would then come into force six months later. The senior official estimated negotiations would take eight to 12 months starting next September, putting the implementation date well into 2028.  

Capitals had backed a pan-European solution in part because it allows enforcement to align with the landmark Digital Services Act, which gives the power to oversee big platforms like Instagram and TikTok to Brussels. Industry and some civil society groups were also supportive of an EU-wide solution because they wouldn’t have to deal with dozens of national laws and different ages in different countries.  

But public sentiment around social media and teen mental health has taken a severe turn for the worse in recent years, culminating in multimillion- and, in some cases, billion-dollar settlements against Meta and TikTok across the U.S.  

In the meantime, European leaders and von der Leyen have spent the last year promising the public age restrictions for social media.  

“A European age limit will send a much stronger signal to Big Tech – enough is enough,” said Denmark’s Egelund. “It will also place the responsibility firmly and directly on those who should bear it – the tech giants.”  

Bald dudes, you may want to cancel those tickets to Turkey, because an oral hair loss drug deep into clinical trials has generated positive results in over 500 balding men. According to a new study released by pharmaceutical company Veradermics, their shiny new daily pill could soon save your increasingly exposed scalp.

The experimental drug called VDPHL01 just went through a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial involving 536 men with mild-to-moderate male pattern baldness. They spent six months taking an 8.5 milligram pill once or twice a day, or taking a placebo. The guys taking the daily pill sprouted nearly 29 more hairs per square centimeter, while the twice-a-day overachievers birthed over 36 extra hairs. Placebo guys grew six lonely hairs.

Scientists Just Tested a New Hair Loss Pill, and the Results Are Pretty Impressive

Nearly 85 percent of the two-a-day crowd reported visible improvements in the mirror, compared to 15 percent of placebo takers who probably would’ve had better luck filling their vision boards with pictures of John Stamos’s head. No serious side effects reported.

The secret here is no secret at all, actually: minoxidil, the blood pressure medication that someone long ago noticed spurred hair growth as a side effect. Now, it’s one of the first lines of defense for men attempting to stem the tide of hair loss. For a while there, doctors prescribed it in a topical form, but it recently gained popularity as a pill.

Veradermics is hoping VDPHL01 becomes the first officially FDA-approved oral minoxidil specifically formulated to resurrect dead hair follicles. The company is currently running extended trials to track long-term safety over a full year, while launching a Phase 3 trial for women dealing with pattern baldness.

The post Scientists Tested an Experimental Baldness Pill on 536 Men. Here’s What Happened. appeared first on vice.

If you were anything like me as a kid, trick-or-treating meant one, maybe two, pillowcases full of candy every Halloween. 

And as fun as collecting all that candy could be, the real fun began when I got home and dumped my winnings onto my bedroom floor. That’s when the sorting began.

I had some very specific rules: The usual suspects — think Smarties, Tootsie Rolls, and Dum Dums — went into one pile. Fun-size chocolates, like Snickers, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Baby Ruths, went into another. And then there was my prized pile: Skittles, Warheads, Starbursts, and Sour Patch Kids. Those were meant to be eaten slowly throughout November. The rest was fair game. 

The ways we sort and eat our Halloween candy are decided by some very particular, personal rules. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would like to add another distinction: Which candies are made with artificial dyes?

Kennedy’s ire for synthetic food dyes is years old, and they’ve become a major target of his Make America Healthy Again movement. Last year, he announced a plan to remove “petroleum-based synthetic dyes” from foods, arguing that companies “shouldn’t be feeding it to the rest of us.”

That plan has become a multimillion-dollar problem for Mars, the maker of M&Ms, which promised customers last year that they would create an all-natural version of their tasty chocolatey treats. As the Wall Street Journal reported this summer, however, its latest offering is missing one of the most iconic colored M&Ms — the blue M&M. 

M&Ms aren’t the only snack food in Kennedy’s crosshairs: He has called out Doritos, Cheez-Its, Cap’n Crunch, and gummy bears, saying their ingredients include “a lot of poisons.” On Fox News, he described what children eat as “food-like substances” and also said that “some of it was made in petroleum refineries.” 

In reality, the evidence is more complicated, because the Food and Drug Administration has long considered many of these approved synthetic dyes to be safe under its rules, while acknowledging that some children may be sensitive to them. Kennedy’s sweeping accusations go much further. 

Still, pressure from Kennedy and those in the MAHA movement has led many companies to rethink the recipes of your favorite snacks. But producing those alternatives isn’t easy or cheap, as the story of the blue M&M illustrates. 

Jesse Newman, a food reporter for the Wall Street Journal, went inside a Mars factory in Topeka, Kansas, to see the process for herself. She spoke with Today, Explained co-host Noel King about why blue is so difficult to produce naturally, and what changing a candy’s color actually accomplishes. 

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., has some issues with the blue M&M. What, what exactly happened? How did it draw his attention? 

He is not a fan of any sort of chemical. He’s really concerned about toxins in our food. And Blue 1, which is the food dye that makes blue M&Ms blue, is a synthetic chemical. 

He really takes issue with artificial dyes. He believes that they cause hyperactivity in kids, some neurological challenges. He thinks artificial dyes are linked to cancer. 

As a member of the Trump administration, he formally set out to get them removed, didn’t he? 

Oh yeah. He’s been putting a lot of pressure on the industry to strip artificial dyes from all kinds of products.

What do we know factually about artificial dyes? We hear that they’re bad for us. We hear that a lot of things are bad for us. We’re all still alive and kicking. Are artificial dyes really detrimental to our health? 

The FDA for decades has said that there are nine artificial dyes approved for use in food. And they said that those artificial dyes are safe and have said so for years and years and years, as have other global bodies, so long as they’re used in accordance with some of the standards that the FDA laid out. 

A California state agency has found that dyes are linked again to hyperactivity in children. And the FDA itself has said, ‘Okay, we think that these dyes are safe for the vast majority of kids, but some kids might be more sensitive to them than others.’

So I think the real issue is that it’s a chemical doing it. They’re purely cosmetic. They don’t do anything except color food. There is no nutritional benefit that you are getting from these dyes. And so do we need them? Absolutely not. 

I think one of the issues is that if you’re looking at the ways our food contributes to health problems, artificial dyes are probably pretty low on the list.

You went inside a factory where they make M&Ms, and you looked at how they’re trying to make this happen. Tell me everything. 

I went to this plant in Topeka, Kansas, to see how they were made. And it’s a massive industrial food plant, where they mix these colors and spray them onto these small chocolate orbs, which they refer to as lentils.

The M&Ms move through the plant, and they arrive at these massive [machines] that they call pans, but they look like big tumble dryers. And the M&Ms just tumble around in these pans, and the color is sprayed on. It’s a very, very industrial process, millions of M&Ms a day. And the challenge that Mars has now is making that happen with a natural dye instead of an artificial one. 

A blue natural dye is the challenge. What are the problems?

They’ve been working on this for years. And they went with a product called spirulina, which is made from algae. But spirulina comes with a host of problems that they are now dealing with. 

Blue 1, which is the artificial dye, arrives at the factories as a liquid. And they pour it into these mixers and they mix it up with this sugary syrup and it’s pretty easy to handle. Spirulina arrives as a powder. So now you’re mixing a powder into this same mixture, into the same recipe, and that is very different. 

Because spirulina is a protein, the resulting mixture becomes a lot thicker. What they found was that the mixture containing spirulina would really clog up the piping. It was getting stuck. It moved less smoothly through the pipes. 

Also because it is a protein, it was starting to coat and build up on the inside of the machinery. And when that happens, it’s a food safety hazard. It can mold; it can cause problems. For many reasons, it was a challenge to handle. 

How much did this all cost? 

I should say it’s not done. Mars wouldn’t give me an official figure for how much they spent. But they said that they are spending millions and millions of dollars. 

They’re having to retrofit their plants, essentially. Mars said that they’re having to change about 300 types of machinery in their plants. It’s a real investment. And at the end of the day, it all comes down to cost. 

What did they actually end up getting done? What was the outcome here? 

Mars said what they committed to was that they were going to release a new version of their M&Ms and a few other of their products this year that were made with natural dyes instead of artificial dyes.

They didn’t come out and say we’re eliminating artificial dyes. And so folks should be really clear about that: Their artificially dyed M&Ms aren’t going anywhere. They are still on shelves. 

What they said is that they’re going to come out with an option that is naturally dyed. So they tried to do that. And what they found was that they couldn’t do it at a cost that was acceptable to them. With the blue and with the spirulina, it would have been far too expensive to make it work at scale. We’re talking millions and millions and millions of M&Ms per day.

They had problems making the green, the blue, and the brown M&M because, if you go back to your elementary school color theory, they needed blue to make all of those M&Ms. Ultimately they said, “Okay, we can do green. There’s little enough spirulina in the green to make the green M&M.” But blue and brown, they are not able to get there yet due to the amount of spirulina that those colors require.

And so earlier this year, they launched their naturally dyed version of M&Ms with red, orange, yellow, and green M&Ms. And if you take a look at this bag, my colleague referred to these as autumnal. They look very autumnal.

They look sort of muted.

You know, it really isn’t the same. It looks like a mature person’s M&M.

At the end of the day, what are the changes to the M&Ms? Let’s say I go online and get the natural dyed ones. What does that mean for my health? Am I now a healthy and virtuous person if I’m eating the autumnal M&Ms? 

It means very little. 

I would say you are, hopefully, still enjoying that sugary treat and the pick-me-up in the afternoon as you’re starting to tire. But you’re still eating candy; you’re still eating sugar. It really hasn’t changed very much.

BRUSSELS — Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

The European Commission updated its approach to dealing with climate change along those lines on Tuesday with a package aimed at improving the bloc’s response to mounting disasters such as extreme heat, supercharged storms and worsening wildfires. 

Unveiling its first-ever law to boost the bloc’s resilience to global warming, the EU executive conceded that merely slashing planet-warming emissions is insufficient as climate extremes wreak havoc across the continent. 

“There is no alternative to continue to cut emissions more forcefully and to move full-frontal into clean energy,” Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters. “But at the same time, we do have to acknowledge that the problems we’re facing have morphed into something that is so large that just doing that alone unfortunately no longer is good enough.” 

The Commission’s proposed Climate Resilience Law asks governments to draft plans to prepare for a world that’s 2 degrees Celsius hotter in 2050 and 3C hotter by the end of the century, aligning with the United Nations’ latest projections that current global climate policies can only limit warming to 2.8C. 

The same U.N. report also warned that the world can no longer limit warming to 1.5C, the lower bound of the Paris Agreement’s dual goals, and that steep emissions cuts are needed to achieve the best-case scenario of halting the rise in global temperatures at 1.8C. 

The Commission insisted that Tuesday’s package did not amount to Brussels resigning itself to catastrophic levels of warming. 

“Let me just be crystal-clear on the 1.5C, that remains our goal,” said Hoekstra. “At the same time, it would be unwise not to prepare for… the current trajectory the world is on.” 

Regulation for the deregulation era

Under the proposed law, governments are “encouraged” to take the 3C scenario into account when designing policies, budgets and investments. 

Countries will have to carry out national climate risk assessments every five years starting in 2029, and subsequently draw up climate-proofing plans by the end of 2030. These strategies should also indicate which public authorities are in charge of managing certain climate risks to avoid inaction and finger-pointing among ministries and agencies.  

The fairly light-touch legislation reflects the prevailing mood in the EU. Brussels itself has committed to a deregulation agenda, and national governments have called for fewer rules, not more, particularly where climate and the environment are concerned. 

Efforts to improve resilience to weather extremes, such as flood prevention or urban greening, are also largely a national and even local responsibility, with the EU holding limited powers. 

Even the limited rules proposed on Tuesday are already raising eyebrows. 

“I strongly support a clearer allocation of responsibilities,” said Peter Liese, the lead climate lawmaker of the center-right European People’s Party. But, he added, “we need to examine whether the plans, in the form proposed by the Commission, are necessary. Plans alone do not protect people and could tie up resources unnecessarily if we do not design them pragmatically.” 

Others argued the law was too limited. “The danger is a framework that tells us exactly how exposed we are and then commits us to nothing,” said Greens-affiliated lawmaker Kai Tegethoff. “Europe needs binding resilience targets and clear, measurable goals for the sectors most at risk.”

The Commission, for its part, has sought to appeal to governments’ concerns over the EU’s economic competitiveness by emphasizing the wealth-destroying threat of climate disasters and the business potential of climate-proofing technologies. 

“Some may say resilience is expensive. But the right question is, what is the real cost of being unprepared,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s executive vice president in charge of the green transition. Both she and Hoekstra cited data showing the impact of heat on GDP as an example. “Europe cannot be competitive without being resilient,” she added. 

In the wider package presented Tuesday, the Commission also highlighted the emerging market for climate technologies such as drought-resilient crops and cooling solutions, casting European industry as a front-runner in that sector. 

As the EU is currently negotiating its next long-term budget, the package does not come with any funding attached, despite financing often acting as the biggest barrier to climate-proofing efforts. The bloc needs to invest around €70 billion a year by 2050 to adapt to a warmer world but currently only spends €29 billion. 

More where that came from

While presenting new obligations for governments, the Commission also promised to push ahead with work in Brussels. 

The European Environment Agency will draw up bloc-wide climate risk assessments, with the next one due in June 2028, and the Commission will present an EU “strategic plan on climate resilience” by the end of September 2028. 

Progress will be assessed regularly based on four criteria — climate-related deaths, economic losses attributable to global warming, the share of uninsured losses, and related fiscal costs. The Commission’s Eurostat agency will start compiling EU-wide statistics on climate-related deaths and economic losses by the end of 2030, according to the regulation. 

Beyond the legislative efforts, the EU executive also presented a wider package that includes several digital tools, including a “climate viewer” that converts the new warming scenario into local projections policymakers can use.

The Commission also vowed to take into account the new 3C warming scenario in all its future policy proposals. Further steps, including a heat wave action plan and a climate insurance alliance, are planned for next year, it said. 

“I wouldn’t say that we’re nearly done,” said Hoekstra. “Much of this is going to be work in progress.” And if climate change continues getting worse, he added, “this package might well need to be beefed up.” 

European lawmakers have held four times as many meetings with tobacco and nicotine lobbyists in the past two years compared with the entire previous parliamentary term, according to data analyzed by POLITICO.

Since this Parliament took office in the summer of 2024, more than 400 meetings have been declared, compared with about 100 in the 2019-2024 term, according to data collected by the Smoke Free Partnership, a coalition of NGOs, from the Transparency Register. European lawmakers are required to publicly disclose their meetings on the register.  

Meanwhile, most meetings this term were with right-leaning MEPs. Some 75% were with lawmakers from the center-right European People’s Party, the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right Patriots for Europe groups.

Meetings with tobacco and nicotine groups have ramped up this term as the EU seeks to overhaul several key pieces of tobacco and nicotine legislation. The EU has also proposed measures this session to curb heart disease and cancer, plans that also affect the sector.

Some MEPs have called out the tobacco industry’s access to lawmakers as they negotiate measures to prevent addiction and disease caused by the sector’s products, such as in a cardiovascular disease strategy report and cancer plan. 

“I find it scandalous and shocking that there are more meetings with the tobacco industry than the NGOs and the associations that advocate for stop smoking,” Tilly Metz, a lawmaker with the Greens/European Free Alliance, said.

“When you are working on health files, it is completely incompatible to regularly meet with the tobacco industry,” she said. Metz referenced the World Health Organization’s tobacco control treaty, which says policymakers should meet with tobacco lobbyists only when strictly necessary to discuss the sector’s regulation. 

The tobacco industry and MEPs who regularly meet with industry say they have done nothing wrong.

British American Tobacco’s head of fiscal affairs, Simon Trussler, said that like any other business in Europe, it had legitimate experiences and arguments to put forward “because we see what’s going on on the ground.”

Marlboro manufacturer Philip Morris International, whose meetings accounted for the most of any tobacco company, pointed out its contribution to the European economy and that the firm is “undergoing a deep transformation towards a smoke-free future.” 

“We are proud to contribute to the democratic dialogue and to engage with any MEP, from any political group, who is open to discuss on the basis of science and facts and our determination to be part of the solution,” said the company, which also sells nicotine pouches, vapes and heated tobacco products.

Global treaty debate

One concern raised by Metz and other MEPs is whether World Health Organization tobacco control rules are being followed correctly.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control stipulates that public health policies need to be protected against industry’s commercial interests. It doesn’t ban lobbying, but guidelines to implement the treaty say that policymakers should limit interactions with the sector to what is strictly necessary for the purposes of regulating it, and ensure transparency of those meetings. 

Industry maintains it operates within the rules and presents its perspective transparently. The sector also points to a 2022 European Court of Justice judgment stating that the treaty doesn’t prohibit industry participation in implementing tobacco control; it is “intended solely to prevent the tobacco control policies of the parties to the convention from being influenced by that industry’s interests.”

In addition, the sector argues that the WHO framework doesn’t cover tobacco-free nicotine products. These products are especially in the firing line for stricter regulations as Europe seeks to overhaul tobacco products and advertising rules, as well as EU minimum taxes.

BAT’s Trussler said the company complied with all regulations and was transparent in how it did so. The WHO’s framework on tobacco control has been “misquoted and misunderstood,” Trussler claimed. 

The company also argued that the FCTC’s scope is limited to products made from tobacco leaf.

That’s not the position of the World Health Organization. Kristina Mauer-Stender, WHO Europe’s regional adviser on tobacco control, pointed out the scope of the treaty “extends beyond reducing tobacco consumption.”

Article 5.2(b) requires parties to adopt and implement effective legislative and other measures “for preventing and reducing tobacco consumption, nicotine addiction and exposure to tobacco smoke,” she said. “Therefore, preventing nicotine addiction is an explicit objective of the Convention’s implementation, rather than merely an indirect consideration.”

The Conference of the Parties’ decisions have also progressively addressed novel and emerging tobacco and nicotine products, she added.

Clusters

The data comes following criticism that the European People’s Party watered down language on tobacco in a non-binding cardiovascular disease report this summer. 

EPP lawmakers suggested changing the wording around nicotine having the “same” regulation as tobacco to instead having “appropriate rules.” This was supported by two MEPs who had held the third most meetings with industry — Jessica Polfjärd and Elena Nevado del Campo.

The final report adopted by the European Parliament reflected the proposal. 

Socialists and Democrats MEP Romana Jerković, who led the report in the health committee, said at the time she wished it could have been more ambitious on tobacco. 

Lobbying has also intensified as the European Commission prepares to release several updated regulations on tobacco and nicotine products.

The Smoke Free Partnership says spikes in meetings cluster around key policy initiatives, such as the tax directive. “While meetings alone cannot prove direct influence on decisions, they highlight the industry’s opportunities to shape the legislative debate,” Director Erin Roman said. 

However, transparency around industry meetings was not sufficient, Roman said, adding that meetings should only be “strictly necessary for effective regulation.”

To another Socialists and Democrats MEP, the lobbying has gone too far.

“Amendments weakening new tobacco products rules in a plan to fight Europe’s biggest killer didn’t come from nowhere: the groups meeting the industry most are the ones watering down the rules,” Spain’s Nicolás González Casares said.

Political trends

MEPs who have met with industry the most this parliamentary term mostly hail from the right. 

Patriots MEP Auke Zijlstra held the most meetings with 14, followed by ECR’s Pietro Fiocchi with nine. The EPP’s Michalis Hadjipantela, Elena Nevado del Campo and Jessica Polfjärd all declared eight.

Zijlstra said he always spoke with any industry when a legislative proposal was on the table that would impact them. 

“I do not think that I had too many meetings regarding tobacco and nicotine legislation. Taking an interest in the field is an absolute part of the job, and I don’t understand MEPs who have an opinion without,” he added.

He also denied the industry was overrepresented in meetings with lawmakers, saying, “There are a lot of consumers out there.” He encouraged NGOs to ask for more meetings to explain their point of view. 

The Smoke Free Partnership said it had faced “significant pressure” on its resources due to the withdrawal of EU operating grants last year. “We have continued engaging with policymakers and coordinating independent public health expertise, but reduced funding means difficult choices about what activities can be prioritized,” it said, adding there was an imbalance between industry’s resources. 

A spokesperson for Hadjipantela said he engages with a broad range of stakeholders as he’s a member of six committees. He “remains fully independent in his assessments and decisions,” the spokesperson said, adding: “Meeting with a stakeholder does not imply endorsement of their views or interests.”

Meanwhile, Nevado Del Campo said her meetings with tobacco representatives were because of the large number of tobacco producers in her region, and she had a duty to listen to the sector as it was a large employer. She also met with groups on the other side of the debate. “My commitment is with a healthy Europe and, at the same time, to those farmers who get up every day to work the fields of Extremadura and boost our regional economy.”

Fiocchi and Polfjärd did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication. 

Topics and countries

A large number of meetings covered the tobacco taxation directive, which is currently making its way through the Council of the EU. The directive will put minimum taxes on nicotine and tobacco products and expand the definition of what is covered. 

Other topics discussed and declared included tobacco products and advertising directives, as well as “harm reduction.” The Commission is currently drafting revisions of the products and advertising rules.

Lawmakers declared at least 178 meetings with Philip Morris International representatives — far more than any other tobacco manufacturer. Second was British American Tobacco with 60. 

Further data shared with POLITICO by Transparency International EU shows that PMI ranked fourth behind Meta, Google and Apple as companies that had met the most MEPs and their assistants. A POLITICO investigation last year revealed PMI also successfully lobbied the European Commission. 

The Transparency Register data also shows which countries are more willing to listen to tobacco lobbyists.

MEPs from Italy, the bloc’s leading tobacco leaf producer, met with the industry far more than other nationalities — more than one in five declared meetings of tobacco industry representatives in the Parliament involved an Italian lawmaker.

This was in part driven by Italian company Manifatture Sigaro Toscano meeting exclusively with Italian MEPs. Just under half of BAT’s meetings were with Italian MEPs. The country was also well represented in meetings with PMI, although German lawmakers declared having met the company slightly more.

The dataset, which relies on lawmakers’ declarations of their meetings, likely offers a conservative snapshot of tobacco lobbying in Parliament. POLITICO removed declarations with insufficient information, but also added meetings declared more recently.

Large tobacco companies are broadly working to migrate consumers onto nicotine products under what they describe as a “harm reduction” approach. They argue nicotine and smoke-free products are better alternatives to smoking tobacco and so need to be enticing enough for people to use over cigarettes. 

Proponents dispute this, saying people don’t need to be exposed to addictive products. They also point to the high use of nicotine pouches and products among young people, who otherwise weren’t smoking. 

At least 28 meetings in the dataset referenced public health measures, rather than tobacco regulation or taxation, although this is likely non-exhaustive, as a large number of self-declared descriptions remain vague. Two meetings explicitly mentioned cardiovascular diseases. 

Greens MEP Metz was part of a group of lawmakers who pushed to restrict tobacco lobbyists’ access to EU lawmakers and accused the Parliament of failing to live up to its obligations under the WHO tobacco control treaty. But this push failed earlier this year. 

Metz said she will “continue to fight” for Parliament to fully respect the framework controlling tobacco.

As you get older, your body gets weirder, malfunctioning in some awfully creative, uniquely torturous ways, like how those with a prostate will have to wake up a few times a night to dribble out an obnoxiously small amount of pee. This is because the prostate commonly enlarges in men as they age, though why it does so when cancer isn’t involved has been a little bit of a mystery.

A research team from Johns Hopkins University, publishing their findings in the Journal of Pathology, may have found an answer.

Doctors knew that benign prostatic hyperplasia starts in one specific part of the organ: the transition area around the urethra. Why that tiny ring of tissue suddenly started pumping out extra cells out of nowhere while the rest of the gland kept on doing its thing wasn’t well understood.

By running single-cell RNA sequencing on around 130,000 individual prostate cells, the researchers discovered a brand-new subtype of basal epithelial cells called WIF1+ (which, written out, looks like an improved form of Wi-Fi), and it’s that cell that might be why you have to bleary-eyed shuffle to the bathroom at one, three, and five in the morning.

Your Prostate’s WIF1+ Cells Are Betraying You

The prostate is broken up into several distinct areas, but these WIF1+ cells are holed up almost exclusively in the transition zone. Tissue samples taken from men with enlarged prostates showed a huge surge in these cells, promoting tissue growth and cellular remodeling that puts your urethra in a chokehold, thus explaining why only a little bit of pee comes out at a time.

As obnoxious as that sounds, that might be why the transition zone rarely gets hit with prostate cancer, as these cells might actively dampen local inflammation and tweak specific growth signaling pathways.

There’s some more research to be done to prove direct causation, but if this finding proves true, it will go a long way in identifying a clear target for future drug therapies, thus giving a glimmer of hope to men who just want to sleep without having to drain a leaky hose a few times a night.

The post Scientists Might Finally Know Why Older Guys Pee Multiple Times a Night appeared first on vice.

Last week, I sank into my living room couch and watched a bedraggled, nihilistic Matthew McConaughey take a drag of a cigarette in season 1 of True Detective. "You know, someone once told me time is a flat circle. Everything we've done, or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over again." I assume most people aren't thinking about fitness trackers or gadgets while watching that scene. But in that moment, I couldn't help but think about the Fitbit Edge on my wrist.

The $179.99 Edge is a modernized version of the 2014-to-2020 era of fitness bands - your Charges, your Altas, your Inspires. If you've ever owned one, you already know the va …

Read the full story at The Verge.

People in Belgium will be able to smoke at restaurant terraces for a little while longer after the government announced it would be delaying its outdoor ban planned for early 2027.  

The federal government planned to prohibit smoking outside cafés and eateries as a public health measure from Jan. 1 , spearheaded by social democrat Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke.

But Belgium’s Council of State, its supreme administrative court, “has asked us to adjust some measures, and we are working on this,” a statement from Vandenbroucke’s cabinet, shared with local media outlet VRT, said.  

The minister’s move initially prompted backlash from the Belgian hospitality sector; the statement added the postponement would allow enough time for venues to adjust to the new rules.   

Several other EU countries are moving forward with similar bans — albeit with different success rates. France recently introduced a smoking ban on beaches, gardens and near schools.  

Spain, meanwhile, approved a draft bill in July that would extend the ban to outdoor terraces and other public spaces, including restrictions on e-cigarettes — but which faces pushback from restaurant owners. 

Belgium introduced a slate of new anti-smoking laws last year, including curbs on smoking in airport rooms and a ban on flavored vapes, aiming to achieve a “smoke-free generation” by 2040. Outdoor smoking bans are one of many measures advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO).  

According to the Belgian Cancer Foundation, nearly a quarter of Belgians smoke and 19% do so daily. 

It is unclear how long Belgium will postpone its outdoor smoking ban. Once published, the country’s national parliament still has to approve the Council of State’s amendments.

Every job interview eventually gets around to the question about your greatest strength. You’ll say you’re detail-oriented or a team player, and they’ll smile and pretend it’s the first time they’ve heard either answer. 

Psychologist Alice Boyes has a different way of looking at what we’re good at. Writing in Psychology Today, she suggests considering the “things you’re willing to do that 95% of people aren’t.” She gives the example of a manager who happily spends six months figuring out office politics before pitching an idea. Her coworkers could do the same thing, but most would rather get on with their lives.

Some strengths aren’t especially impressive on paper. Maybe you’re the person who doesn’t mind filling out paperwork for four government agencies, or you can work with the office narcissist without wanting to put your head through a wall. Other people might have the same abilities. They just have absolutely no interest in using them.

And there’s a reason to figure out what yours are. Gallup research found that people who use their strengths daily are six times more likely to be engaged at work and three times more likely to report an excellent quality of life.

Boyes recommends asking yourself five questions, each a little harder to answer than the last:

• What am I willing to do that 50% of people aren’t?
• What am I willing to do that 70% of people aren’t?
• What am I willing to do that 90% of people aren’t?
• What am I willing to do that 95% of people aren’t?
• What am I willing to do that 99% of people aren’t?

At 50%, you might come up with something fairly ordinary, like paying attention to details. By the time you reach 95% or 99%, you’re looking at habits that other people find exhausting. Someone who hates repeating a task might spend hours inventing a way around it. That could save everyone time, or drive the entire office insane.

Boyes also suggests getting away from descriptions like “resilient” or “risk-taker.” She describes a woman working in commercial real estate who gets excited whenever another obstacle threatens a deal. Most people would be ready to throw their laptop out the window. She’s already figuring out what to try next.

And if nothing comes to mind immediately, that’s fine. Boyes recommends sitting with the questions and noticing what you’re willing to put up with over the next few months.

You might discover your greatest strength is something you’ve spent years assuming everyone else could do, too.

The post 5 Questions That Could Reveal Your Greatest Hidden Strengths, According to Psychology appeared first on VICE.

You could’ve graduated 20 years ago and still have nightmares about showing up for that final you forgot to study for. You’d think your brain would give it a rest.

Harvard dream researcher Deirdre Barrett has talked about how these dreams can continue for decades after you’ve left school. Our brains have a habit of hanging on to whatever we’ve been worrying about, even after we’ve gone to bed. “We’re thinking about the same things that we were most focused on by day,” she told the Harvard Gazette.

A new study suggests that people who worry a lot might also have a harder time escaping unpleasant thoughts while they sleep. Researchers led by Vittorio Lenzo at Italy’s University of Catania surveyed 389 adults about their dreams and how much worry they experience during the day, along with symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Your Brain Might Be Turning Everyday Worries Into Bad Dreams, Study Suggests

People who worried more reported having more unpleasant dreams, and those experiencing depressive symptoms said the same. Participants whose dreams affected their mood the following day also reported higher anxiety. Stress had the strongest connections to the other experiences researchers measured, according to PsyPost.

Psychologists call the connection between waking life and dreams the continuity hypothesis. If you’ve spent the day worrying about your job, for example, it wouldn’t be unusual for work to creep into your dreams that night. Researchers also suspect that unpleasant dreams could contribute to more anxiety the next day, creating a cycle that’s difficult to get out of. Barrett discussed similar experiences in an interview with Science Friday.

The strongest connection researchers found was between remembering dreams and talking about them. Some people can recall an insane amount of detail from their dreams, and they’re usually more than happy to tell you all about it.

There are limitations to consider. Most participants were young women recruited online, and researchers relied on their own accounts of their dreams. The survey also captured everyone’s experiences at one point in time, so there’s no way to know if worry causes unpleasant dreams or if having bad dreams contributes to anxiety.

If you’re tired of unpleasant dreams, Barrett suggests thinking about something you’d actually enjoy dreaming about before falling asleep. In earlier research, about half of college students who tried this successfully dreamed about their chosen topic.

And if it works, you might finally get a decent night’s sleep without your brain dragging you into another stressful situation.

The post Scientists Just Found a Surprising Link Between Worrying and Having Bad Dreams appeared first on VICE.

Breathing is such an automatic function of our brains that we often take it for granted. We forget, or simply don’t know, how transformative it can be when done properly and with intention.

You can calm yourself, relieve anxiousness or anger, or, in the case of findings published in a real mouthful of a scientific journal, Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, it might even help you reach an altered mental state that’s a bit like the one you’d experience if you took psychedelics.

Presented at the ECNP Congress in Munich, researchers from Germany’s Central Institute of Mental Health shoved 30 experienced breathwork practitioners into an MRI machine to see what happens to the brain during continuous “circular breathing,” a technique used by musicians playing instruments like saxophones, trumpets, or trombones that allows them to continuously breathe in while breathing out into their instrument, thus cutting down on the need to stop and take a breath.

Researchers Discovered a Way to Get Psychedelic-Like Effects Without Taking Drugs

The researchers found that global gray matter cerebral blood flow plummeted by about 45 percent. Cutting off 45 percent of blood flow in the brain sounds like it might kill you, but it does induce a lot of trippy side effects in the brain; it isn’t solely responsible for causing those trippy side effects.

Circular breathing was found to reshuffle the brain’s neural wiring, with participants reporting high-intensity altered states described as a deeply “oceanic” state in which they felt deeply connected to the universe. If that sounds a lot like the words of someone on LSD, you’re right. The effects are similar.

It was a small study, and there wasn’t a control group that was doing no breathwork at all, but researchers see it as a fascinating non-drug way to peer into the effects of psychedelic drugs. Breathing, after all, is free and doesn’t tick off the FDA.

Simple breathwork, when done properly, might be a nonpharmacological path for mental health treatments, considering how much LSD and psilocybin have been studied as potentially viable treatments for depression and PTSD.

The post This Breathing Exercise Could Make You Feel Like You’re Tripping on LSD. But Does It Actually Work? appeared first on VICE.

When you hug, hold, squeeze, and pet your cat, you’re probably vaguely aware, maybe just in the back of your mind, that you’re actively trying to improve your quality of life by engaging in a pleasant activity. But something might be happening on a deeper, hormonal level that boosts not only your mood but your cat’s, too.

According to research published in iScience by a Kyoto University team, previous studies on whether cats actually make our lives better have been a bit of a mixed bag. There’s enough science to strongly suggest that dogs offer health benefits that stick around for quite a while. But research on cats’ health benefits, like the animals themselves, is complicated and inconsistent.

To figure out why cat ownership’s perks are harder to pin down, the researchers tracked 19 human and cat pairs for a month using Bluetooth tracking beacons and urine samples to check in on any biological effects.

Your Cat’s Brain Chemistry Could Be Affecting Your Mood, New Research Suggests

They found that simply owning a cat doesn’t magically turn your brain into a blissful utopia. But something fascinating is happening, and you need to be in close physical proximity to your cat to reap the benefits.

The study found a direct hormonal link between humans and cats: higher oxytocin in cats correlated with lower cortisol and fewer negative vibes in humans. Oxytocin is the hormone associated with bonding, and cortisol is the hormone that triggers stress.

In other words, the more your cat feels your bond, the less stress you’ll feel in turn. The researchers found such a close connection between the two that a cat’s oxytocin levels tracked an owner’s bad mood more closely than the owner’s own biochemistry did.

This is, of course, a good example of small-sample-size theater, and it all amounts to correlation rather than causation, but excuse me for snuggling your kitty just a little bit more tightly tonight.

The post Why Spending Time With Your Cat Feels So Good, According to Science appeared first on VICE.