It's one of the most sensitive subjects regarding mental health but it's something that we need to talk about, to empathize with, and to find ways to prevent. But we don't have as much understanding about the suicidal thought process or triggers which would help us devise methods of helping people who struggle with it.

But there’s been some encouraging progress in recent years, both in understanding the suicidal thought process and in developing individual and societal interventions to better assist those caught in the crucible of such a crisis. Instead of encouraging people to sign no-suicide contracts, clinicians now are more likely to work with a patient to design a personalized prevention plan to use when suicidal thoughts flare.

In trying to formulate prevention methods, we look first into how a person gets from one point to another, that is, how suicidal thoughts lead to an attempt. The Three-Step Theory is especially useful in giving insight on how this happens.

The gist of the Three-Step Theory is that it starts when a person feels a sense of hopelessness from emotional or physical pain.

That may not be enough to push someone to the edge but the second step, not having a tether or someone that a person deeply connects or resonates with, might provide the basis for a person to take the third step, which is to make an attempt.

This leads to the discourse on trying to prevent the act by removing the means as well as providing intervention plans that would help the person look for another way to deal with their situation.

But there is a surprising safety net for all potential suicide victims: time. It’s on their side if they can be kept away from guns or other immediately lethal means. Research shows again and again that the window of peak suicide risk is narrow, frequently just an hour or so, and sometimes less than 20 minutes. “The choice to take one’s life is rarely a long-term stable choice,” Klonsky says. “It’s usually made in the moment of crisis that’s not as bad even five or six hours later.”

People going through this struggle need to know that there is hope and that there are people who care about them. Go and show someone you care. For those who are on the verge of crisis, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is open 24/7, 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).

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When once, children dreamed of going to space, now they want to become Youtubers. But that's not a completely bad thing for as technology brings us ever further, it also continues to spark our interests for the unknown reaches of space.

Kids may be spending a lot of time on YouTube, but it’s providing them access to a growing space scene that’s educating and inspiring millions. By meeting kids where they are, and embracing YouTube as a platform for sparking and fostering interests, we can inspire the next generation of astronomers, space enthusiasts — and yes, even astronauts.

Dedicated space YouTubers are delivering, with footage from space, black hole explainers, and tours of the International Space Station. Their content is making learning about space exploration more accessible, well-rounded, and fun than ever before.

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Being a part of any royal family can be a harrowing experience but that doesn't have to be the case for every one of them which is certainly something that Harry and Meghan would rather have for their child.

Living under the radar might be a bit difficult for celebrities, and all the more so for the British royal family but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Certainly, several royals have already lived as private citizens, away from the media and paparazzi.

Some other royals have lived as non-royals or those who aren't working royals and won't have the duties that those in the main line of succession need to carry.

It's definitely something that we would all want, to have our privacy within our control and to be away from public scrutiny. A child born into the royal family need not bear the same fate of fame and being under the public eye.

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No matter what season it may be, traveling to different places is always a great way to relax and learn something new about the world. For frequent travelers, they pack a lot of tips and hacks that, though small, can make your trips a whole lot easier.

The Hustle asked their readers about the best travel hacks and they have collated thirteen from a pile of advice that they received. From getting the best seat on the plane to packing tricks, here is the list of travel hacks you should try out. What are your travel hacks?

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Canada's biggest demographic cohort, the millennials, are facing a long uphill battle, one caused by the fiscal laxity on the generations that preceded them, the boomers who are now putting the burden on their children and grandchildren to pay for their taxes and health care costs.

This discourse is massively relevant not just in the upcoming elections in Canada, but it is something worth pondering for various nations in the world who might be facing the same issues.

Intergenerational justice is the term being thrown about and even in the US, a candidate is running his platform with that theme in mind. Even so, the onus is being passed on to the younger generation and it doesn't bode well for any of us.

This disproportionate growth in spending on seniors might be defensible if the boomers had experienced financial hardships that younger Canadians didn’t. But it’s the boomers who won that lottery, of course—and who now appear to want their children and grandchildren to cover the four-course meal with a glass of prosecco.

Their kids, on the other hand, aren’t doing as well. Yes, they’re more educated on average than their parents, but they don’t have much to show for it, other than the ever-expanding pile of student-loan debt, as wages for Canadians under fifty-five have more or less stagnated over the last four decades. And yet, Kershaw notes, those same kids are being asked to give back in ways their parents never did.

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With the emergence and rising popularity of on-demand streaming sites, the nature of our consumption has transformed and with it, our habits, values, and perspective of the world have changed as well, influenced by how it is being presented on media.

The medium with which we get information and entertainment has become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives so much so that not only do we spend most of our time in it but also much of our socialization revolves around it.

Now, we are in the age of binge-watching and the mechanisms that had captured our attentions through the wonders of TV and movies have now become intensified with streaming sites offering us an unlimited number of shows with no interruptions.

It is now slowly shaping the way we behave - spending hours on end of late-night viewing to catch up on our favorite shows, even doing weeklong movie and TV marathons.

It also affects what type of content we consume preferring bite-sized information that we would use to make opinions and "informed" decisions.

As a response to this trend, a critical theory has been put forth on this binge culture that is gradually pervading all across the globe with giants like Netflix and Amazon.

What we consider to be “bingeing” changes—it’s not just about the number of episodes you watch; it’s about the choice of a single show. Netflix’s full TV season drops have created an insular flow:

“Rather than going back to the home page and making a deliberate choice… the post-play function takes us directly to the next episode. The ‘skip intro’ function even allows us to make the narrative flow feel more seamless.” Netflix tells us at every moment how to watch it.

All of these are designed to keep our attention fixated on our screens on an intensified level than TV or movie theaters could.

The authors offer some directives for further work. One of these is to question the extent to which binge-watching has impacted biopolitical production.

In its advertising campaigns, Netflix has made light of how sleep and the necessity to eat or leave your apartment can get in the way of your binge.

Horeck and colleagues point out how this colonization of sleep is a core tenet of the company’s business model. Netflix’s CEO in 2017: “We’re competing with sleep.”

The shifts have only started to affect our consumption habits but they are soon going to have a drastic impact not only on the entertainment and cultural spheres but they have the potential of influencing social, economic, and political spheres as well.

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The New York City Animal Care Centers has recently posted a picture of a new cat who's up for adoption. His name is Barsik and he weighs in at around 41 lbs. or around 18 kgs.

World-record contender or not, Barsik is certainly a big, big boy. Social media posts from the ACC noted that the 5-year-old feline “is too big for our housing” and had to be kept in his own makeshift enclosure. He’s the largest cat to be brought to the organization in its 20-year existence, according to the New York Daily News.

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Among the Big Five Personality Traits, certain traits like extraversion and emotional stability are generally viewed as positive and so people tend to prefer these trait dimensions as opposed to their counterparts.

However, these traits are found to be normally distributed across populations. So that leads us to wonder, if we were to look at it from the evolutionary standpoint, wouldn't it be logical for natural selection to weed out these traits from the population?

This might be explained by a concept called balancing selection. Dan Nettle and Helen Clegg wrote a paper regarding the subject.

They stated that the reason why traits such as introversion, neuroticism, and other less popular traits persist is because there are benefits and risks for each side of the dimensions.

They basically argue that each of the Big Five, foundational traits has a distinct set of evolutionarily relevant costs and benefits. And for this reason, we tend to see a healthy balance of these different personality trait variants across a broad array of human populations.

Extraverts enjoy such benefits as increased social status, increased social network size, increased number of sexual partners, and being rated as relatively attractive as mates. On the downside, they are more likely to die young, they have increased risk of accidents, and they are more likely to experience harsh relationship dissolution related to such things as infidelity.

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In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the efficiency of transport, railway proponents suggest that the government invest more on trains and mass public transport.

Indeed, there are ways that rail can help make transportation more convenient, quicker, and a lot less detrimental to the environment but there are several factors to consider.

Public opinion, legislation, and the logistics of making rail transport ubiquitous are some of the challenges that rail proponents might face. But maybe it's time for America to have something like the Trans-European rail network.

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Oftentimes, what's written in textbooks don't capture the whole story of a certain historical event. That is the case with the suffrage movement which had its start during the 1830s stretching way back when the abolitionist movement sprung.

To cut the whole story short, most events recorded in history books excluded the contributions of many African-American, Native American, Asian, and Latin American women. A schism broke out among the suffragists dividing them between white women and others.

Read the other details of the history of the suffrage movement. The exhibition "Votes for Women: A Portrait of Resistance" will be displayed at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery until January 2020.

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Lenticular clouds also called UFO clouds because well, they look like UFOs. It's quite an uncommon phenomenon.

Most of the time they form above mountainous areas when moist air condenses but they can also form in other places with the presence of shear winds.

Here is a gallery of lenticular clouds submitted by various people on Earth Sky and a little bit more information on how these clouds form.

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Scientists have detected a remnant from a planet, whose star died, orbiting around the corpse of the star. Usually, when stars die in a supernova explosion, the resulting impact would obliterate everything around it. The interesting thing about this white dwarf is that a dusty ring has formed around it.

When the sun eventually dies out, it is thought that Earth will be like the dead planet that the scientists observed. Although we are far from that point, it might be best to start looking for ways to get away from it. Like going to Mars perhaps?

(Image credit: NASA/ESA/J. Hester/A.Loll)

Being allergic to certain types of food is annoying. You can't enjoy those food and you will always have to be on the look out for food that may have them as ingredients. It makes eating less of an enjoyable experience.

The best way to treat allergic reactions is by taking antihistamines and allergy shots for serious cases. However, scientists say that they may have made a breakthrough in understanding allergic reactions, starting with peanut allergies.

For their study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists recruited 16 patients who were allergic to peanuts. They tested serum from the participants’ blood to identify where the IgEs binded with peanut proteins.

Next, the scientists developed inhibitors, enzymes which bind to other enzymes to reduce their activity. Those molecules, which they named covalent heterobivalent inhibitors, were found to stop allergic reactions by stopping IgES from latching on to peanut proteins.

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The German language may be construed as harsh sounding when you listen to it but famous for their weird humor, Germans also have interesting ways of throwing insults. Some of these sound rather fun and innocuous while others can get downright disgusting.

From silly quips such as "banana bender" and "ant tattooist" to nonsensical ones like "butt violin" and "asparagus Tarzan", you better not get on the bad side of some of your German friends or you'll find yourself on the receiving end of these insults.

Personally I like Speichellecker, Kotzbrocken, and Backpfeifengesicht. Check out the rest of the words on Mental Floss.

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Ever experienced your computer being infected and your files getting deleted unexpectedly? I have and what a learning experience that was. When my computer got infected, I panicked. I didn't know whether I would be able to get my files or restore my computer's normal functioning.

The first thing that I thought was to back up my files. I was able to access the computer through safe mode and I rushed to buy an external hard drive to transfer all my important files. 

Having done that, I set out to see if the virus could be removed. After a lot of tinkering and researching, I successfully restored the computer without any files being removed. But I never wanted to experience that ever again. It was like having a mini heart attack.

The frustration of not having backups of your files is a common one. Thankfully, nowadays there are various ways to back up your files. Like I mentioned, external hard drives are the best way. You could also use cloud services. But the question is, how frequently should you do it?

“How often you need to back up your computer is going to depend largely on what you use your computer for,” says Mike Towler of Mike’s PC Repair. For example, “someone who uses their computer for business as well as for [extensive] personal use is going to need to back up their computer daily [ideally through a pain-free automated process].”

On the other hand, those who mostly use their PC to “play solitaire and watch cat videos” might not have the same pressing need to back up their computer. Joking aside, Towler suggests that “everyone back up their computer at least weekly.” 

What other ways can you use to back up your files? Read on to find out more.

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