As we wind down from Halloween, our mouths drop in horror at the thought of a recent discovery made at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima, Peru: Over 3,000 tarantulas that had been hidden within dirty socks were seized, as the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) told Agence France-Presse.

On November 4, dutiful agents spotted some curious wriggling within luggage, thus prompting the chilling find. Two Germans and one Pole, who were detained, each harbored a share of these creepy crawlers in their suitcases. Each of these suitcases contained between 15 and 22 socks with different numbers and kinds of tarantulas. The genera included the Brachypelma, Avicularia, and Pamphobeteus. The Pamphobeteus antinous species is currently categorized as Vulnerable. The impressive and carefully selected specimens were gathered from various parts of Peru. They ranged from eggs to adults, and some were even brightly colored.

The arachnid victims of the failed trafficking scheme were destined for Germany, where they would have fetched a hefty sum. Their collective worth was estimated at over €1.5 million ($1.7 million). SERFOR’s Cora Suarez explained that a single one of these arthropods can sell for around €500 ($560) in Europe. Whereas the tarantulas would have probably become pets, been used for research purposes, and the like, the collectible creatures will instead be taken to a breeding center. Fortunately, Peru protects tarantulas, even if many civilians hold a stigma against them, and the three hooligans can look forward to the cold hand of justice.

Travelers Allegedly Tried to Smuggle 3,000 Tarantulas Inside Dirty Socks. It Didn’t Go Well.

Naturally, I reached out to an expert — leading music photographer and former pilot NecrosHorns. He told me a wild story that I certainly was not expecting, “Once, flying from the Bocas del Toro Island Archipelago in Panama, I noticed a crab had grabbed onto luggage and was traveling in the cargo area.” I expressed my shock, and NecrosHorns clarified that “the adventurous crab” had attached himself to the luggage of his own free will. No one had noticed the peculiar presence until NecrosHorns’ observant eye spotted the free-riding, hanger-oner of a crustacean. NecrosHorns stated, “I notified cargo people, and they took it out and threw it back into the water.”

NecrosHorns also mentioned that, as a photographer, airport security stopped him in Leipzig because he was wearing a vest with a slaughtered lamb painted on it — artwork for the band Mare. While exploring the underworld of black metal, I’ve heard of the struggles that extreme bands face, as they sometimes try to transport spikes, animal parts, blood, bones, and other oddities. If they are wise, however, they will arrange to have their stage necessities supplied by sources local to the sites of their planned gigs, as label owner Yosuke Konishi once explained to me.

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A man named Vito passed away in what was perhaps the most beautiful fashion. Vito’s “dramatic exit” came shortly after he danced to the classic “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees and while his favorite music was still blasting. As we send our condolences to Vito’s family and friends, we allow ourselves to feel inspired by his story and the kindness of Los Angeles-anchored baker Eden Malinoff.

Malinoff, who operates Baked SoCal, commented on TikTok, “[…] if there’s any way that Vito would have chosen to go out, it would have been like this, surrounded by people he loved. We were celebrating his long and full life, and I am just so grateful I got to be a part of it.” She described her late friend as “an icon” and “an absolute legend.”

Man Dies at His Own 97th Birthday Party, Just Moments After Celebrating With Friends

The sweet California girl and wizard in the kitchen explained, “[…] when I asked him earlier in the week what the key was to living such a long life, he told me it was, and I quote, ‘To never drink cheap liquor.'” Malinoff thus carefully prepared a gorgeous red wine chocolate cake for the Halloween-themed rager in celebration of Vito’s 97th birthday.

Vito, clad in black and looking fabulous, was filmed moving swimmingly; a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and other well-dressed characters filled the room. Vito’s friends were fortunately able to sing “Happy Birthday” just before tragedy struck. “At 24 years old, I could not keep up with this man. He was the life of the party,” Malinoff reflected.

One of Vito’s best friends confirmed on social media, “It was an amazing birthday party.” The man revealed that Vito’s friend group had been unaware of the severity of his medical issues. Vito was indeed lucky to have an arsenal of such great souls by his side.

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Weddings, whether your own or someone else’s, are a great way to discover the truth about who your friends are and aren’t. In a viral TikTok video, one user, jackie.o436, claimed that her supposed best friend since high school, Nikki, asked her to gain roughly 120 pounds so that she’d look petite compared to her on her big day.

According to Jackie O, Nikki invited her to be her bridesmaid while out to dinner. Jackie’s excitement turned to disbelief when Nikki insisted she start getting facials twice a week because photoshopping away her “eyesore” acne represented an expense she did not want to cover. Let it be noted: Jackie’s skin looks clear and radiant to me. Nikki is such a cheapskate that she wasn’t even prepared to pay for Jackie’s dress.

The conversation took another nosedive when the 200-pound Nikki finally broke that legendary piece of news to Jackie, who says she had worked hard to lose weight, about her wish to be the “skinniest bi—h” in the room through efforts other than her own… When Jackie tried to raise her objections to the idea of plumping up, she learned that Nikki had uninvited her own sister, Rachel, who already suffers from an ED, for refusing to agree to even bigger gains.

A Woman Says Her Friend Asked Her to Gain 120 Pounds for Her Wedding, Then Threw Spaghetti at Her

Upon pointing out that Nikki was being unreasonable, Jackie received a plate of spaghetti flung over her outfit, as Nikki indulged in a “tantrum like a three-year-old.” Nikki then not only accused Jackie of being a jealous “single loser,” despite the fact that the latter had set up her engagement, but also a fake friend. Jackie paid for the two meals in an effort to flee but turned around at the door, only to see Nikki stress-eating from the ground as a security guard walked over.

Jackie says that she had previously believed that bridezillas of such epic proportions only existed in movies, and it seems that the Nikki in question only exists in the imaginations of netizens. Jackie has used social media to tell other curious tales, and her tone of voice and mannerisms when speaking of Nikki are far from organic…

Regardless of the truth, Jackie successfully managed to open up a dialogue around the thought, “There is nothing scarier in this world than a woman who is about to get married.” Verily, many narcissistic brides have left their friends gasping for air with outrageous demands, and sometimes one just has to learn to say no. In addition, we can thank Jackie for kindly raising awareness of sizeism, as it relates to petite women.

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Companies like Colossal Biosciences have been flirting with the idea of bringing back extinct animals for years. But now that a team of researchers says they’ve found traces of dinosaur red blood cells that somehow survived 115 million years, we might finally see whether researchers can show a level of restraint that Jurassic Park’s John Hammond clearly didn’t have. Though, we probably won’t have to worry about that kind of problem for a while.

According to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paleontologists led by Kliti Grice at Curtin University analyzed a 10-foot, 75-pound juvenile Aratasaurus museunacionali dug up in Brazil. Inside the leg bone’s vascular canals, they found oval structures packed with heme, the iron-filled chemical ring in hemoglobin that moves oxygen around the body.

It’s the first time anyone has identified heme within the structures in a dinosaur fossil.

Researchers Discovered a Surprising Clue About Dinosaur Biology Inside a 115-Million-Year-Old Fossil

Those squishy bits survived for hundreds of millions of years without rotting thanks to the low-oxygen mud that seems to have overtaken the creature soon after its death, quickly halting the decay process. Then, a manganese oxide mineral called hausmannite moved in, acting like all-natural bubblewrap that kept the cellular framework and collagen amino acids in place.

While the imagination immediately turns to Jurassic Park and whether anyone with the power to bring dinosaurs back to life actually paid attention to the moral lessons of the multibillion-dollar film franchise, finding heme isn’t the same as finding intact DNA.

Grice insists they aren’t trying to cook up a live dinosaur; instead, they’ll use this discovery to study the creature’s metabolism, how it transported oxygen throughout its body, and its activity levels. And then there’s the much more interesting question posed by this discovery: the chances might be slight, but if there is one set of dinosaur bones out there with some little specks of blood still kicking around, there might be others just like it sitting in museum collections around the world or in the next batch of bone researchers dig up.

The post Researchers Found Something Inside a Dinosaur Bone That Sounds Straight Out of ‘Jurassic Park’ appeared first on VICE.

For most of history, parents prayed for a son to carry on the family name. Now some moms are crying into the blue confetti.

Americans have a long history of preferring boys. Gallup has asked which sex people would choose if they could have only one child since 1941, and boys have come out ahead every time. In 2018, the split was 36% for boys and 28% for girls. Women, however, were almost evenly divided, with a slight preference for daughters.

A separate 2025 Gallup International survey of nearly 45,000 people across 44 countries found that 19% of women preferred a daughter, compared with 12% who wanted a son. The majority, 66%, had no preference whatsoever. So the idea that women everywhere have suddenly decided boys are terrible isn’t exactly supported by the numbers.

Why Some Expectant Mothers Secretly Hope They’re Having a Girl, According to Psychology

Still, gender disappointment is very real. In a December 2025 Reddit discussion, an expectant mother admitted she was struggling after learning she was having a boy. She’d always pictured raising a daughter, and knowing this would probably be her only pregnancy made it harder. She was also excited to meet her son, but she also said “I am now grieving the future.” Both feelings existed at once.

A paper published in BJPsych Bulletin examined this experience, noting that parents frequently want the opportunity to raise both a son and a daughter. Having several children of the same sex can make that imagined family feel increasingly unlikely.

There’s also pressure from other people. One mother on Reddit described being thrilled about expecting her second boy, only to have relatives express disappointment. Her relatives seemed to have decided she needed a daughter, whether she wanted one or not.

And those expectations can get ridiculous. Having a girl doesn’t guarantee a future of wedding dress shopping and Sunday phone calls, any more than having a boy guarantees football games and a lifetime of dirty socks.

It’s understandable to feel sad about the daughter you’ll never have, especially if you’ve pictured that relationship your whole life. But the little boy you’re bringing home has no idea about any of those expectations. He just needs parents who are happy he’s here.

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There’s no shortage of theories about what happens after we die. Scientists have a little more to say about what happens right before.

Researchers in Italy asked 239 hospice volunteers and palliative care professionals about the strange things patients had described seeing near the end of their lives. For a 2026 study in Death Studies, they collected accounts of dreams that sometimes felt incredibly real, along with visions patients reported having while fully awake.

A white horse galloping along a beach is a strange thing to see near the end of your life, but that’s what one patient reportedly described. Others remembered staircases and open doorways. For many, though, the visions involved people they knew, including family members who had died years earlier. One woman dreamed that her late husband told her, “I’m waiting for you.”

What Happens Right Before We Die, According to Science

Most of these encounters were comforting. Imagine being near the end of your life and suddenly seeing someone you’ve missed for 30 years. For some patients, though, the dreams brought up painful memories or relationships that had never been resolved.

The Italian researchers collected these accounts from caregivers, so they were relying on what people remembered hearing rather than interviewing the patients themselves. But similar experiences have been documented directly.

In a 2014 study published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, Christopher Kerr and his colleagues interviewed hospice patients in Buffalo, New York, about their dreams and visions. Fifty-nine of the 66 patients enrolled were included in the final analysis, and most recalled at least one such experience. Nearly all said it felt real.

Visits from deceased loved ones were among the most comforting experiences patients described. They also became more common as death approached. Kerr has spoken about how frequently love and forgiveness come up in these accounts, something that can be difficult to explain when you’re looking at the subject strictly through a medical lens.

Even the caregivers weren’t always sure what to make of these experiences. Medication and serious illness can affect how someone sees the world, and delirium is another possibility near the end of life. The Italian researchers encouraged caregivers to listen to patients rather than dismissing everything they describe as confusion.

There’s something beautifully human about all of this. Near the end of their lives, people are remembering the faces they loved, the people they lost, and sometimes a dog they haven’t seen in decades. Science can’t tell us exactly why. But it’s hard not to be moved by the thought of someone seeing their mother again.

The post Scientists Are Studying What People See Right Before They Die, and the Results Are Eerie appeared first on VICE.

Gym guys have never met a recovery shortcut they didn’t want to inject.

The latest is the “Wolverine shot,” named after the X-Men character who can recover from just about anything. It’s a combination of two synthetic peptides, BPC-157 and TB-500, that fitness enthusiasts are using in hopes of recovering faster from injuries and punishing workouts. BPC-157 is based on a substance found in the stomach, while TB-500 is derived from a protein involved in tissue repair.

The injections have some famous supporters. Joe Rogan claimed his elbow tendinitis disappeared within two weeks of using BPC-157, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken about using the peptide to treat a muscle injury.

The enthusiasm is running well ahead of the science. Most research comes from animal experiments, and there’s little reliable human evidence that either peptide helps people heal. FDA scientists have raised concerns about allergic or immune reactions and impurities, with too little information to know how safe these substances are. Buying injectable vials from an overseas supplier adds the possibility of contamination or getting something entirely different from what you ordered.

Access is getting easier anyway.

The ‘Wolverine Shot’ Claims to Help Your Body Heal Like a Superhero. Does It Actually Work?

On October 28, HHS announced that it wouldn’t pursue enforcement against certain licensed pharmacies and physicians compounding six unapproved peptides, including BPC-157 and TB-500, provided they meet strict conditions. Kennedy’s administration argues that supervised compounding offers a safer alternative to the online gray market. Critics worry that patients will mistake easier access for evidence that the drugs work.

There’s another catch. The policy allows each peptide to be compounded individually, not combined into the Wolverine stack. Neither has FDA approval. Competitive athletes also have reason to steer clear. Both substances are prohibited under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s rules.

Actual human research is still catching up. A small, placebo-controlled trial of BPC-157 after shoulder surgery is planned for 2027. Researcher Shiloah Kviatkovsky told Business Insider that the popularity of these treatments before proper testing is frightening, especially when buyers can’t always know what’s in their injections.

Wolverine also has an unbreakable metal skeleton and a team of comic book writers looking out for him. The rest of us have to deal with actual consequences.

The post The Truth About the ‘Wolverine Shot,’ the Viral Recovery Hack That Has Doctors Concerned appeared first on VICE.

If you live in an apartment with neighbors above you, you know the nightmare. Are they dropping bowling balls up there? Is this some kind of home renovation project nobody told you about? And why does it always start at 1 a.m.?

New York City received more than 738,000 noise complaints through 311 in 2024, according to FOX 5, including over 356,000 involving residential noise. Older buildings can be especially miserable, since floors and ceilings weren’t always designed with much consideration for the people living on either side of them.

Figure Out What You’re Hearing

Not all noise travels the same way. Voices, televisions, and music are considered airborne noise, while footsteps, dropped objects, and furniture scraping across hardwood create impact noise. The latter travels through the building itself, making it much harder to block from below.

Soundproofist explains that impact noise is best addressed at the source, meaning the floor upstairs. Acoustic foam panels won’t do much to stop the sound of your upstairs neighbor stomping around in work boots.

Have an Awkward Conversation

There’s a solid chance your upstairs neighbor has no idea how much you can hear. You might hear every footstep and chair scraping across the floor, while they assume they’re just going about their day. It’s an awkward conversation to have, but telling them what’s happening is a good place to start.

Rugs with thick padding can reduce the sound of footsteps, and felt pads under furniture can help with scraping noises. You can’t make someone buy a rug or change how they live, but they might be willing to make a few adjustments once they know how much sound travels downstairs.

Make Some Changes Downstairs

Voices and music give you a few more options. Upholstered furniture, curtains, and rugs can absorb some sound inside your apartment, although they won’t soundproof it. A heavy bookcase against a shared wall might help a little, depending on where the noise enters.

Drafty doors are another place to look. Weatherstripping and a door sweep can reduce sound slipping through the gaps.

Find Something to Cover the Noise

Sometimes your best option is making the noise less noticeable. A fan, white noise machine, or comfortable earplugs can help at night, especially when you’re dealing with sounds you can’t control.

Know When to Complain

If you’ve already talked to your neighbor and the noise hasn’t improved, it’s probably time to involve your landlord or property manager. A record of when the noise happens, how long it lasts, and what you’re hearing can help make your case. You can also check your city’s noise ordinances to see what rules apply to late-night disturbances.

As tempting as it is to bang on the ceiling with a broom, that probably won’t accomplish anything beyond making your upstairs neighbor angry. And you still have to live underneath them.

The post How to Deal With Noisy Upstairs Neighbors Without Starting a War: A Guide appeared first on VICE.

Doing your job well is only half the job these days. The other half is making sure everyone saw you do it.

In the U.K., they’re calling it “loud working.” A new survey from business platform Tide found that workers spend an average of 2.8 hours a week making sure their efforts get noticed. Tide estimates that adds up to 131 hours a year, or over 17 working days devoted to talking about work instead of doing it.

There’s always someone at work who needs an audience for everything they do. A meeting can’t end without them mentioning how much they’ve accomplished, and they make sure the boss always hears about every extra hour they’ve put in. Meanwhile, everyone else is just trying to get through the workday.

Employees Are Wasting Nearly 3 Hours a Week Trying to Prove They’re Working

For some workers, it’s become unbearable. Tide found that 27% of U.K. respondents had considered leaving a job because of the pressure to promote themselves, and nearly one in 10 said they’d already quit over it.

Employee relations expert Jim Moore of Hamilton Nash told Metro that office self-promotion has been around forever. We’ve just given it a new name and a LinkedIn account.

There’s also the related business of looking busy, even when you’re getting very little done. In Slack’s 2023 State of Work survey of over 18,000 desk workers worldwide, respondents estimated spending 32% of their work time on tasks meant to create the appearance of productivity rather than contribute to company goals. For U.S. respondents, that figure was 28%. Another 63% of workers across the survey admitted they tried to keep their online status active even when they weren’t working.

Some of this comes from management. Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index found that 87% of employees felt productive, but only 12% of leaders said they had full confidence in their teams’ productivity. Microsoft called the disconnect “productivity paranoia.”

It’s not hard to see how that creates an office full of people desperate to prove they’re working. When the boss pays attention to who’s talking the most, the employee quietly getting everything done can look like the one who isn’t pulling their weight.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting recognition for a job well done. But when workers feel pressured to announce every accomplishment, it’s fair to wonder how much anyone is paying attention to the actual work.

Then again, someone has to write those LinkedIn posts about being humbled and honored to announce another exciting professional milestone.

The post What Is ‘Loud Working’? The Workplace Trend That’s Driving Employees to Quit. appeared first on VICE.

Watching The Matrix for the first time is a one-shot deal. A cinema chain in the Netherlands thinks a hypnotist can get you a second shot at seeing it for the first time…again.

Pathé is attempting exactly that on November 9 at its Buitenhof theater in The Hague. The experiment, called REWIND, will involve 30 movie fans and hypnotherapist Victor Kraemer, who’s been practicing for over 30 years. Participants will have individual online hypnosis sessions, followed by another session immediately before the screening.

The movie will be one of four: The Matrix, Se7en, La La Land, or Interstellar. Pathé will choose based on participants’ preferences, with the hope that hypnosis can make a familiar movie feel brand new.

“Who wouldn’t want to see their favorite film again for the very first time?” Pathé spokesperson Imke van Schaaijk said. Quite a few people would probably sign up for that. Whether they’ll forget anything is another question. Pathé hasn’t promised it’ll work, and there’s no established method for erasing someone’s memory of an entire movie.

Want to Watch Your Favorite Movie for the First Time Again? This Theater Thinks Hypnosis Can Help.

There is, however, some interesting research on the subject. A 2008 study published in Neuron had participants watch a film and return a week later for hypnosis. People who were highly susceptible to posthypnotic amnesia recalled fewer details after being told to forget what they’d watched. Once researchers gave them a cue to remember, their recall improved.

No one actually forgot the movie. The hypnosis temporarily made certain details harder to recall, and only among people who were especially responsive to it. Whether that would work on someone who’s watched Interstellar half a dozen times is another question.

There’s also research suggesting that knowing a movie’s ending isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Psychologists Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt at UC San Diego found that people enjoyed short stories more when the endings were revealed beforehand. Their experiments involved written fiction, but the findings raise an interesting question about why we love rewatching movies in the first place.

After all, knowing what’s coming gives you a chance to appreciate details you missed the first time.

Pathé’s experiment might work for some participants, or everyone could spend an evening watching a movie they already know by heart. Either way, if Se7en wins the vote, somebody in The Hague is going to spend two hours hoping they’ve forgotten what’s in that box.

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NASA’s Swift observatory, a once mighty space telescope, will soon be no more. While it’s not dead just yet, it is well on the way to burying itself, as attempts to revive the ailing telescope have failed. Where on Earth it will call its final resting place remains to be seen, as the legendary satellite will eventually fall back to Earth in the coming weeks.

As reported by Live Science, the 3,200-pound Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory spent the past 22 years in low Earth orbit, snooping on far-off black holes, supernovas, and gamma-ray bursts. Now, it has been decommissioned because solar activity is heating the upper atmosphere and creating drag, pulling the satellite back to Earth. NASA did launch a $30 million rescue mission, though that failed in July, sealing Swift’s fate.

Everything We Know About the NASA Space Telescope Falling to Earth and Where It Could Land

NASA officially shut off the satellite’s instruments on October 20 after it dropped to an altitude of 171 miles above the Earth. The U.S. Space Force expects the space junk to reenter the atmosphere this week.

The satellite will burn up as it reenters the atmosphere; scientists warned that about 10 percent of its weight could survive reentry and ferociously slam back to Earth. Exactly where it will land isn’t known yet, but an extremely rough, extremely large swath of the planet makes up its potential landing zone, encompassing South America, Central America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, and India. Researchers say that getting bonked by a falling NASA satellite has odds anywhere between 1 and 2,100 to 1 in 10,000, which is relatively low but still not low enough.

No need to shed a tear for Swift, as it far outlived its originally planned two-year mission. It had a great life, with its observations filling the pages of countless published studies and acting as something of an assistant to its more impressive siblings, the Hubble and Webb telescopes.

RIP to a legend.

The post NASA’s 22-Year-Old Space Telescope Is Falling Back to Earth, and Scientists Don’t Know Where It’ll Land appeared first on VICE.

While there are hackers out there causing mayhem as they remotely disable supermarket refrigeration units across Europe, there are more playful, more mischievous hackers out there filling video billboards around the world with porn. CNN recently reported on an Egyptian highway billboard that was loaded with some porn, but that’s just one instance. Gizmodo has compiled an ongoing list of digital porn plasterings across the globe, capturing the work of a merry band of internet freaks.

Reports detail how drivers on Giza’s sprawling 26th of July Axis in Egypt had their commutes suddenly made much more visually interesting by explicit porn videos being played on a massive highway LED billboard. As Gizmodo points out, similar impromptu porn sightings have popped up across Malaysia, Brazil, and reportedly in Iraq and China, leaving local authorities scrambling for a power cord to yank.

Hackers Are Filling Public Billboards With Porn, and Their Reasoning Is Surprisingly Political

Unlike the hacked refrigeration units, whose perpetrators authorities worldwide are still trying to unmask, a group has taken full credit for the horn billboard hacks. Based on the app Telegram, the crew operates under tags like “Leakers$” and “@LeakersGov.” A group representative quickly pointed out that while it may sound difficult to hack a billboard in a foreign country, it’s actually quite easy and, according to the representative, can be done by “anyone with two brain cells.”

Speaking to news outlet The Cairo Report, the group’s representative said that the group ran a scan that uncovered thousands of commercial display networks at work wide open on the public Internet with no basic security protections. So they filled them with porn.

Beyond bringing porn to the masses, the group does have some political messaging here, ensuring that they let everyone know that “Egypt remains under a dictatorship. The government maintained its power through repression, while the country struggles to move forward; years pass, but nothing changes in people’s lives don’t improve.”

That, paired with the fact that the group is not looking to make any money off of this via ransoms, it seems like it’s the group trying to remind those of them exerting their authoritarian control that there are always limits and loopholes to their powers. Also, CNN uncovered a funny stat given the context of the story, but it turns out that Egypt is “among the top 20 countries visiting pornography websites in 2025, according to Pornhub Insights. The United States ranked first.”

The post Why a Group of Hackers Is Playing Porn on Digital Billboards Around the World appeared first on VICE.

Spoiling a dog with birthday cakes and a fancy bed is easy. Paying to have a sock surgically removed from its stomach can make you question every financial decision you’ve ever made.

A survey commissioned by Healthy Paws Pet Insurance and Money.com asked 1,542 American dog and cat owners about the financial realities of having pets. Some 77% consider their animals practically children, but 76% admitted there’s a price at which they’d consider turning down treatment their vet recommends. For about a third, that limit is under $1,000.

Healthy Paws obviously has an interest in getting people worried about vet bills, given that it sells pet insurance. But the cost of veterinary care is a genuine concern, and other research has found that owners are already skipping treatments they can’t afford.

Pet Owners Are Facing an Impossible Choice as Veterinary Bills Continue to Climb

A PetSmart Charities and Gallup study of 2,498 pet owners found that 52% had skipped or declined recommended veterinary care in the previous year. Among those who passed on care, 71% cited financial concerns.

And veterinary care has gotten significantly more expensive. Prices climbed roughly 43% between January 2021 and January 2026, according to Labor Department figures cited by Healthy Paws. Veterinarian Matthew Murdoch told the New York Post that an X-ray used to cost about as much as dinner for two. These days, he compared the price to a weekend getaway.

The consequences can be heartbreaking. Veterinarians even have a term for euthanizing an animal with a treatable condition because the owner can’t afford care: economic euthanasia. Veterinarian Barry Kipperman has argued that the profession should treat it with the same urgency as a disease that needs preventing.

Pet insurance can give owners another option, but it has its own costs and limitations. In a 2021 University of Melbourne study involving 147 dogs with gastric dilatation-volvulus, a life-threatening stomach condition, insured dogs were less likely to be euthanized before surgery. It’s a small study involving one emergency condition, but the association is hard to ignore.

For some people, the expense of having a pet has gotten so high they’ve had to give up the animal altogether. In a 2024 LendingTree survey, 12% of pet owners said they’d surrendered a pet because they couldn’t afford to care for it. That number was even higher among Gen Z respondents, at 25%.

You can love your dog like a member of the family and still have a mortgage, groceries, and a bank account that can’t absorb a surprise surgery. Building an emergency fund or looking into insurance before a pet develops health issues could help, though neither guarantees you’ll be able to cover every bill.

Unfortunately, dogs have no idea how expensive eating a sock can be.

The post How Much Would You Spend to Save Your Pet’s Life? Here’s Where Americans Draw the Line. appeared first on VICE.

Ordering coffee seems harmless, at least until the person next to you hears what you asked for.

A Talker Research survey of 1,586 American coffee drinkers found that about one in three judge other people by their coffee orders. Some are worried about getting judged themselves, with 23% admitting they have a drink they’ll only order when nobody they know is around.

The things people are putting in their coffee might explain some of the embarrassment. One respondent adds maple syrup and peanuts, while another pours coffee over black tea. Someone else orders a double espresso with five sugars, a teaspoon of butter, extra whipped cream, and caramel syrup. That’s a lot happening in one cup.

Only 14% of those surveyed drink their coffee black. Everyone else reported adding something, whether it’s the usual milk and sugar or ingredients like marshmallows, salt, and honey.

Your Morning Coffee Order Could Be Getting You Judged, and You Might Not Even Know It

There’s also some research that might make black-coffee drinkers uncomfortable. A 2015 University of Innsbruck study found an association between preferences for bitter tastes and certain antisocial personality traits, including psychopathy and everyday sadism. Black coffee was among the bitter foods and drinks examined, but the research didn’t establish that people who drink it have those traits. A later replication attempt also failed to reproduce the psychopathy finding.

People couldn’t even agree on what qualifies as coffee. In the Talker survey, 78% considered a Frappuccino a coffee drink, and 67% said the same about pumpkin spice lattes. Starbucks’ Pink Drink didn’t fare as well, with 69% saying it doesn’t count, which…good, because it doesn’t have coffee. Another 65% rejected the “chaider,” a combination of chai and apple cider. Again, not coffee.

Baristas have opinions about customer orders, too. One former barista told BuzzFeed that “anyone who orders a cortado wishes so badly that they were European.” Others care much more about how customers behave. A barista quoted by Eat This, Not That! said they judged people by how they treated the staff, not what they ordered.

So go ahead and order the maple peanut coffee if it makes you happy. Just say please.

The post Your Morning Coffee Order Could Be Getting You Judged, and You Might Not Even Know It appeared first on VICE.

Telling your parents you want to be an influencer probably isn’t the career announcement they were hoping for. Now you can at least hand them a diploma.

Arizona State University recently launched a bachelor’s degree in content creation through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Students learn media production, podcasting, on-camera skills, and how to build an audience. Syracuse, Quinnipiac and Colorado State offer related minors, while St. Bonaventure has introduced a major of its own.

The idea hasn’t exactly won over the American public. A Talker Research survey of 2,000 adults found that 52% don’t consider influencing a legitimate career. Only 32% said they did. A third wouldn’t support their kid pursuing a degree in it, though 43% had no objection.

Age obviously influenced the responses. Nearly half of Gen Z, 49%, considered influencing a real job, compared with 42% of millennials, 32% of Gen X and just 19% of boomers. Some adults were interested in going back to school themselves, with 22% saying they’d consider enrolling.

Want to Be an Influencer? You Can Now Get a College Degree for That.

The survey also asked people to choose between a steady 9-to-5 and having a million social media followers. About half chose the regular job, while 25% wanted the followers. Among Gen Z, that figure climbed to 38%.

Counselor Amy Mosset, founder of Interactive Counseling, told Talker she saw the results as frustration with traditional work. But she also cautioned that “followers are attention, and attention is fickle.”

And having an audience doesn’t mean you’re making tons of money.

NeoReach’s 2025 Creator Earnings Report surveyed over 3,000 creators and found that about half earned under $15,000 annually. Even among those creating content full-time, nearly 57% made less than $44,000 from their content, the report’s benchmark for a U.S. living wage. And unfortunately, you can’t pay your rent in Instagram followers.

The degree, as all others, requires a serious financial commitment. ASU lists approximately $39,000 in annual tuition and fees for out-of-state students in 2026–27, with estimated total expenses exceeding $63,000 before financial aid. Cornell professor Brooke Erin Duffy, who studies the creator economy, told the AP that content creation can be demanding work that doesn’t pay particularly well.

Still, ASU isn’t promising to turn students into TikTok celebrities. The program also teaches skills used in journalism, marketing, and media production, giving graduates career options outside influencing.

People spend a lot of money on degrees that never lead to the jobs they imagined. At least content creation students know they’re entering an unpredictable business.

The post Colleges Are Now Offering Influencer Degrees. But Are They Worth It? appeared first on VICE.

The UK hedgehog has been in the news for a while due to its dwindling population, which has fallen by 30-75% since 2000. In fact, these beloved animals are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and have been categorized as at risk of extinction in Britain. It is believed the UK now houses fewer than one million hedgehogs.

Thus, a wildlife expert is urging households to leave out between 50 and 100g of food for the prickly little charmers, as such acts of kindness could amount to the “difference between life and death.” This message is being received loudly and clearly, as sources like Wales Online and The Mirror have been dutifully spreading it.

This is a very important time of year to extend a helping treat to hedgehogs, since these typically nocturnal friends will soon be going into hibernation mode. This summer proved unfavorable to them for a number of reasons, including drought, pests, the difficulty of nabbing food from modern gardens, and humans taking over their habitats. Gardening chemicals have likewise proved a menace to the hedgehog.

Wildlife Experts Are Urging People to Leave Food Outside to Help Save Hedgehogs

Wildlife expert Sean McMenemy, the founder of Ark Wildlife, cautions that if hedgehogs do not weigh about 600g before entering hibernation, they could die. This means that each hedgehog should plump up to grapefruit size or, hopefully, even bigger. McMenemy recommends that the food be left in a space where hedgehogs will feel sheltered and unthreatened.

Country Living kindly lists the foods you can leave out for hedgehogs, in addition to specially-made hedgehog food that can be purchased online and from select pet stores:

• Plain, meat-based wet dog or cat food NOT including fish varieties
• Cooked, unseasoned chicken, turkey or mince (leftovers work well)
• Tinned meat (in water, not brine or sauce)
• Scrambled or hard-boiled eggs (plain, no salt or milk)
• Crushed dry dog biscuits (in moderation and broken up)

They also note, “Always put out a shallow dish of fresh water alongside any food. And one key rule: never give hedgehogs dairy products (especially milk), bread or sugary foods, as these can make them seriously ill. Similarly, avoid fish varieties of cat food, as this can cause indigestion.”

Creating openings at the bottom of gardens dubbed “hedgehog highways” allows the adorable creatures to travel from garden to garden with ease in search of food. Hedgehogs like to eat invertebrates, so creating conditions in your yard conducive to bugs (by setting up piles of logs, for example) will help them find their natural food sources.

The post Why Wildlife Experts Want People to Leave 100 Grams of Food Outside This Fall appeared first on VICE.

A margarita is supposed to have a bit of that tequila burn on the way down, but what allegedly happened at a North Carolina Chili’s this week was horrific.

Three customers at the chain’s Forest City location allegedly suffered chemical burns in and around their mouths Wednesday after an employee accidentally used a granulated degreaser to prepare their margaritas, according to the Foothills Health District. The employee supposedly thought it was sugar. Customers immediately noticed something was wrong, alerted the staff, and left to seek medical attention.

And how an industrial cleaning chemical ended up anywhere near the margarita station is a story in itself.

Three Chili’s Customers Hospitalized After Industrial Cleaner Ends Up in Their Margaritas

On Monday, a contractor was power-washing the outside of the restaurant when a worker took some degreaser and put it in an unlabeled container. It somehow ended up inside the restaurant, behind the bar, where another employee found it Wednesday while preparing for lunch service. Mistaking the granules for sugar, the employee used them to prepare the margaritas.

After customers reported something was wrong, two employees tasted the powder themselves and developed similar symptoms. The health district suspended Chili’s food service permit and ordered a thorough cleaning of the affected equipment and surfaces. By Thursday morning, inspectors had returned, and the restaurant was allowed to reopen after passing its food safety inspection.

Health District Director Jason Masters said the incident demonstrated why restaurants need to properly label, store, and handle cleaning chemicals.

One regular customer wasn’t exactly eager to return. Levonne Baker told WLOS News 13 he was nervous about sitting at the bar again. With an auto shop and urgent care next door, he joked about becoming the next person “going next door. And not for an oil change.”

Unfortunately, the Chili’s incident isn’t the first time a restaurant has mistaken a dangerous cleaning product for something edible.

In 2014, an employee at a Utah Dickey’s Barbecue Pit confused a lye-based fryer cleaner with sugar, and the chemical eventually ended up in the restaurant’s sweet tea. Jan Harding, 67, suffered severe burns to her esophagus and spent nearly two weeks in the hospital.

A similar incident in Oklahoma had an even more tragic outcome. Elementary school teacher Holly Hill was reportedly served a margarita containing an industrial degreaser at a restaurant in Elgin in February 2023. Her family said the chemical damaged her esophagus and caused years of medical complications before her death in October 2025. The restaurant acknowledged the incident, while the family attributed her death to the injuries.

Busy restaurants make mistakes, but an unlabeled container of white powder sitting behind the bar should set off alarms for anyone. Label your chemicals, people.

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An invasive fish thought it was slick, rapidly increasing its population along Maryland’s eastern shores. But the dummy forgot to take something into account as it turned into an apex predator that was wiping out local fish, a problem I’ll let second-grader Ben Rochon describe while speaking to a reporter: “It’s yummy.”

According to an NPR report, the blue catfish is a massive, 100-pound Midwestern sea beast that didn’t call Virginia rivers home until the 1970s, when it was brought in for recreational fishing. State officials assumed the salty water would keep them confined to a small area, but after massive rainfall, the fish found they actually kind of liked the brackish water and started living in every tributary in Maryland, gobbling up local blue crabs and rockfish.

Maryland’s Newest School Lunch Is Helping Fight an Invasive Species

It has no natural predators, so humans eventually had to step up to bring some order to the local food chain or risk throwing off the delicate hierarchy of who gets eaten for dinner. That’s when Beth Brewster was brought in. Brewster is a food service supervisor for Caroline County Public Schools.

State officials asked her to find a way to take this fish that was threatening the local ecological balance and feed it to kids in local schools. That’s how she invented the “catty patty,” a USDA-approved crab cake-style fish patty that sold in school cafeterias.

These blue catfish have some rich tastes. Those crabs and rockfish they eat make their own meat surprisingly sweet, white, and deliciously flaky. Local fishermen harvest thousands of pounds of blue catfish year-round with no catch limits, and those fish are served patty-style to kids across Maryland and Virginia. The kids can’t get enough of them.

Is a good chance that the blue catfish will never fully go away, but as long as it remains tasty, it will always have a spot on a child’s lunch tray.

The post Maryland Is Turning an Invasive Fish Problem Into School Lunch (And Kids Love It) appeared first on VICE.

I don’t envy the people responsible for creating overseas ads. There’s so much to consider about social nuances in other countries that creating an ad that doesn’t accidentally offend someone must be an absolute nightmare.  It’s a lesson Apple seems to be learning right now.

As reported by Asian tech news outlet IT Home, Apple, in an attempt to highlight the 5.4mm thickness of its new OLED iPad Mini, posted on its website some promotional images featuring a hand using a thumb and index finger to hold the tablet, a simple pinching gesture using two fingers that kind of forms the letter “C.” Nothing wrong with that, right? Not to us in the States, at least.

Well, it happens to carry a very specific meaning in South Korea, according to IT Home: it’s a gesture used to mock the size of a guy’s penis.

Apple Removed a Hand From Its iPad Ad, and the Reason Is Pretty Bizarre

This is the first time the “C” gesture has ruffled some South Korean folks. In 2023, gaming company Nexcon included a similar hand gesture and some promotional material for the game MapleStory. That one led to some online pearl-clutching and an issued apology. Apple quickly edited out the hand gesture on the South Korean product page. Where once a hand pinched the iPad Mini, there is now a free-floating iPad.

As far as offensive promotional materials go, a hand gesture that connotes a tiny member is fairly insignificant. Localization is tough across the board, especially when you have to take the shape two fingers make into account, or else you risk suggesting to fragile men that their penises are perhaps too small and therefore they are unworthy of using an iPad.

Or, maybe the Mini is the exact iPad for them. This feels like something only a few people were actually up in arms about, if that, but it also feels like at least a couple out there felt seen. Finally, an iPad for those who are not well endowed.

The post Why This Seemingly Innocent Apple Ad Sparked an Unexpected NSFW Controversy appeared first on VICE.

It is the kind of story that can happen anywhere, but the second you find out it happened in Florida, it feels like it couldn’t have happened anywhere else.

According to reporting from The New York Times, a cop from the South Florida city of Lauderhill, smack in the middle of Broward County, spent the past three years living under the identity and in the home of a 71-year-old man who died alone.

Back in July 2022, Officer Brian Sguros responded to a welfare check on Dennis I. West. West had passed away from cardiovascular disease, but instead of just processing the scene, Sguros apparently saw a prime piece of real estate waiting for a hostile takeover. Court records show Sguros lied to the medical examiner, claiming to be West’s close pal, telling officials that the guy had no living relatives. He signed off on West’s cremation.

A Florida Cop Allegedly Lived in a Dead Man’s House for 3 Years, and Nobody Noticed

Sguros then moved into the home and became a ballsy squatter, abusing his access to public records as a police officer to run unauthorized database searches to track down West’s Social Security number and driver’s license info. He started paying taxes and utility bills under West’s name, even forging the dead man’s signature on building permits. He put $214,000 of his own money into renovating the place, telling neighbors he planned to turn it into an Airbnb.

The whole charade collapsed when a real estate firm legally bought the house from West’s actual living family and rolled up to take possession, only to find Officer Sguros hanging out inside. He surrendered the keys, but then sued the real estate company so he could get his renovation costs back.

Broward County investigators had opened an inquiry into Sguros, who was arrested in October on multiple felonies, including official misconduct and criminal use of the deceased person’s identification. He has resigned from the police force.

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