James “Jimmy” Hatch was a member of the Special Operations unit sent into Kunar, a province in Afghanistan, in July 2005. Their mission: to retrieve the bodies of 16 fallen comrades who were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.

After the gruesome mission, Hatch says, he read a copy of Harold Bloom’s book “Genius,” soaking in the Yale professor’s thoughts and analysis around Shakespeare, Dante, Hemingway, and Faulkner. It helped to keep him sane, he says.

“I sent Bloom an email,” Hatch says. “I told him ‘I am going through a tough time and your book is like a balm. It gives me a safe place to relax and learn.’” Bloom, he recalls, emailed back a one-word reply: “Survive.”

And survive he did. This fall, over fourteen years after the perilous mission, at age 52, Hatch will be studying at Yale as an undergraduate student under the university’s Eli Whitney Students Program, a program “designed for non-traditional students with high potential who have had their education interrupted”.

Hatch’s journey has been a difficult one, he acknowledges — involving combat, injury, depression, substance abuse, and a suicide attempt. But through it all, he says, there was a lust for learning. During his frequent trips by helicopter into combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hatch read philosophers like Neruda and Epictetus by ChemLight.

More of this inspiring story over at YaleNews.

(Image Credit: Brita Belli/ YaleNews)

A group of Chinese international students state that they pay little attention to politics or historical events. One even admitted of not having any knowledge of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. A study from Melbourne University, based on the interviews with the Chinese students, found out that these people have come to Australia to "increase their employability at home". According to their testimonies which were published anonymously in the Journal of Australian Studies this month, they were distrustful to both Chinese and Western media — they see both as biased in different ways.

Manjun Jiang, who is studying science at the University of Melbourne, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age she believed media bias contributed to suspicion towards Chinese students.

"Most Chinese students here have nothing to do with the Chinese government," she said.

"If they [Australians] were educated and have actually been to China they wouldn't have that impression. They have been brainwashed by the media to think China is very suspicious."

The 20-year-old thought studying in Australia would give her an edge in finding a job. "The study quality is better here and I get to practise English which is an advantage," Ms Jiang, who did not take part in the study, said.

Many of the 20 students interviewed were unaware of some of the most severe ruptures in 20th century Chinese history, including the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

What do you think about this?

(Image Credit: Chris Hopkins)

Cannabis is known to alleviate the negative side effects of cancer treatments. Currently, however, there is no evidence that it can cure cancer directly. But can it cure cancer? 

The National Cancer Institute is resolved to find out whether cannabis can cure cancer or not.

On August 7, the first lot of cannabis medicinal formulas—4,500 5cc bottles of THC oil—were delivered by the Government Pharmaceutical Organization to the Ministry of Public Health who was passing them on to the Department of Medical Services (DMS) and ultimately to the NCI.

Six hundred bottles of this lot, with high concentration of the strong psychoactive anti-inflammation THC component, will at once be headed straight to the NCI’s state-of-the-art sophisticated laboratories for cancer R&D.

A hundred of the 600 bottles of the THC oil have been put aside for experiments to be conducted in test tubes to determine once and for all whether cannabis can kill cancer cells, diminish them, halt their reproduction, and stop the growth of a cancerous tumor. 

More details of this experiment over at Khaosod English.

(Image Credit: rexmedlen/ Pixabay)

Yum Brands Inc. on Monday stated that they will be testing plant-based chicken nuggets and boneless wings from Beyond Meat. The plant-based products will be tested at an Atlanta KFC restaurant. KFC is the latest fast-food chain trying new options in an attempt to attract vegan diners.

The quick-service restaurant will roll out its vegan menu items nationally based on the customer feedback from the Atlanta test, Yum said.

Yum is the latest big-chain restaurant jumping on the vegan bandwagon, a growing market as more fast-food chains tweak their menus to add new options for vegans and ‘flexitarians’.

[...]

KFC, known for its fried chicken, will be serving the six or 12-piece combo plant-based nugget meals for $6.49 and $8.49 and boneless wings for $6 and $12.

I think the plant-based nuggets are worth a try. What do you think?

(Image Credit: KFC/ Wikimedia Commons)

イジワルな謎を作りました。
何がイジワルか気付いても怒らないでください。マジで。#解けたらRT #解けなくてもRT pic.twitter.com/jyZQ9IOMPA

— あすわら🍃🥜 (@asuwara0624) August 13, 2019

“I created a cruel puzzle. Please don’t get mad when you realise what’s so cruel about it. Seriously,” said a Twitter user with the handle @asuwara0624. 

The cruel puzzle consists of four different images. Beside the images are circles, in varying number for each image (with some circles numbered 1-4), which need to be filled in with katakana characters associated with the image. Finally, the katakana from the 1-4 need to be taken out and arranged to create a new word. Sounds easy, right? But, like what @asuwara0624 said, this is a “cruel puzzle”. So what’s so “cruel” about this, and how do you solve it? Find out on SoraNews24.

(Image Credit: @asuwara0624/ Twitter)

While fires are common during the dry season in Brazil, the fires this year have set an alarming record. The National Space Research Institute of the country states that they have recorded over 77,000 wildfires in Brazil this year, which is an 85% rise over last year. Around half of these fires occurred in the Amazon region.

Head over at Dothan Eagle to see what’s happening at Amazon.

(Image Credit: AP Photo/ Mario Lobao)

(Image Credit: AP Photo/ Leo Correa)

when u ask ur boyfriend to buy u tampons pic.twitter.com/FmcKUGGkrG

— Brogan (@broganpaget) August 25, 2019

Most men are clueless when it comes to a woman’s period. This statement was just proven when a man named Lewis was asked by his girlfriend, Brogan Paget, to buy her tampons.

But when he got to the shop, he wasn't sure which ones to buy, as there are several different types and sizes, so he sent his partner an absolutely hilarious message.

Confused, Lewis sent a photo of two boxes of Tampax Compak, one yellow and one green. Alongside this photo, he asked, “Do u want the lemon or the lime?”

Brogan shared a screenshot of the amusing message on Twitter captioning it: "When u ask ur boyfriend to buy u tampons."

Her post quickly went viral, garnering over 752,000 likes and more than 109,000 retweets.

Many women were left laughing at the tweet - but the responses showed that some men really thought tampons were flavoured and clearly we need to do more to normalise the talk around menstruation.

One lady commented: "Showed my boyfriend this and he says 'wait, are there really different flavours?'"

(Image Credit: @broganpaget/Twitter)

Ecosia is a search engine that puts advertising profits towards planting trees. The said search engine was reported to have had a 1,150% surge in users because of the destructive fires in the Amazon rainforests.

Ecosia, which donates most of its revenue to reforestation, enjoyed a spike in popularity last week in response to worldwide alarm over the destruction in Brazil and neighbouring countries.

The rush by internet users to help tree-planting emerged as G7 countries agreed to create a $20m (£16.3m) fund to help Amazon countries fight wildfires.

Thanks to the surge in downloads of its app and browser extension, Ecosia states that they can plant a tree every 0.8 seconds.

More details of this refreshing news over at Independent.

(Image Credit: Ecosia)

It’s high time you occupy the hotels!

Blacksburg, Virginia — Virginia Tech this summer tried all kinds of dorm-maximizing tricks to fit in its largest class ever. Singles transformed into doubles, and doubles into triples. Lounges have become pop-up bedrooms for three and more.

And it shunted more than 500 students into a pair of hotels, including a Holiday Inn Express, here in the hills of Southwest Virginia.

Tishya Anand, 17, of Ashburn made the best of it as she unpacked gear in a makeshift triple at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It was move-in day, ahead of the start of classes Monday. Dealing with tight quarters, she figured, “shows your unity as a school.”

Her mother, Sridevi Anand, was less chipper. “Hotel? I was like, ‘I thought she would be in one of the dorms,’ ” she recalled. “This was a little scary, but it’s going to be okay.”

Virginia Tech’s problem, however, is a good problem. It is something envied by other universities who struggle to fill their seats with students.

But how did Virginia Tech get into this kind of mess? Find out on The Washington Post.

(Image Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Living outside Glasgow, Scotland is Jillian Falconer, along with her husband and four children.

When her youngest kid, Lucie, went to school for the first day, she took an adorable photo in her school uniform. However, everything changed by the school day’s end, and her mother knew not was coming.

"Her dad asked how she got on during the day so I sent him the picture of Lucie just to show obviously she had an eventful day," Jillian told TODAY.

On what caused the 5-year-old's disheveled look, Jillian said: "I think she was just excited to see her friends after the summer break. Nothing specific happened."

The photos, however, for some reason, became viral after Jillian and her family posted them on their personal social media pages.

"It just went crazy," she explained.

"I presume because it's relatable," she added. "Anyone can relate to it, either going to school or after a night out. It's a before-or-after I think adults can relate to because of that, and parents can relate to it because their kids may come home in the same state."

What about you? Can you relate to the photo?

(Image Credit: Jillian Falconer)

Daniel Markovits graduated from a public school in Austin, Texas in the summer of 1987. From there he headed northeast to attend Yale, and then picked up a string of degrees as he spent 15 years of his life studying at the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford, Harvard, and, last but not least, Yale Law School.

Today, I teach at Yale Law, where my students unnervingly resemble my younger self: They are, overwhelmingly, products of professional parents and high-class universities. I pass on to them the advantages that my own teachers bestowed on me. They, and I, owe our prosperity and our caste to meritocracy.

It’s all thanks to meritocracy that he was able to go where he is at now. However, meritocracy is also something that makes everyone miserable, as it only values achievement above all else.

Check out more of this over at The Atlantic.

(Image Credit: Free-Photos/ Pixabay)

A study published in the Royal Society Open Science seems to have debunked the “crazy cat lady” altogether. The study found out that dog owners are similarly empathetic to the sounds of their distressed pets. Cat owners also didn’t show signs of being more anxious, emotional or depressed than dog owners.

Researchers at UCLA initially hypothesized that cat owners would be more emotional, or suffer from more anxiety and depression, than other groups they observed, including dog owners and folks with no pets at all. Upon examining the results from the study’s 511 participants (264 owned pets, 297 did not), their hypothesis didn’t hold up.

“We found no differences between cat owners and the other participants on any of the self-reported measures of anxiety, depression or experiences in relationships,” the study explains.

The pet owners, overall, did appear to empathize more with their dogs and cats upon hearing the animals’ meows and whimpers, as they rated the sounds “sadder” than the group who didn’t already own pets.

(Image Credit: StockSnap/ Pixabay)

Snack makers lament because Indian workers can no longer afford to spend 5 rupees (7 cents) on biscuits. The purchasing power has dried up to the point that laborers and blue-collar workers have to think twice about cheap munchies — the situation is that desperate. The culprit behind this is a long-term issue: deep-rooted wage suppression.

Britannia Industries Ltd., the No. 1 Indian biscuit maker, recently sounded alarm bells over the sharp deceleration in its domestic sales volumes. Rival Parle Products Pvt. chimed in and said jobs were at risk for as many as 10,000 of its workers.

A Parle executive blamed India’s 2017 goods and services tax, or GST. While the consumption tax may indeed have been an additional burden in an economy slowing under a disastrous November 2016 currency ban, the funk has its roots in insufficient wages. In recent years, only about a third of the economy’s income has gone to labor, with providers of debt and equity capital taking the rest, according to India Ratings and Research Pvt., a unit of Fitch Ratings. Raising that 33.2% labor share to the developing-country average of 37.4% would put an extra $100 billion of annual spending power in the hands of Indian households.

More details of this saddening news over at Bloomberg.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Avarind Sivaraj/ Wikimedia Commons)

For Jack Sommers, the answer to this question is yes.

Like most of us, Sommers would turn to his smartphone when he had trouble sleeping. In his words, the phone’s bright screen “is a portal to other worlds.” His phone had become his go-to thing every night.

Sure, most of Twitter is bile, but social media suits my exhibitionist spirit; I want to be front and centre of whatever conversations are happening. As a journalist, I am meant to be. When I said I wanted to get my phone out of my bedroom, a colleague half-jokingly asked : “What if something happens?”

So I read when I should have slept. I read funny takes on the latest meme. I read takedowns of Donald Trump’s latest outburst. I read people I thought I respected making excuses for cruelty as casually as cruelty seems to be creeping into public life. I read sombre updates on fresh tragedies. I did not see the link between bingeing on horror and not sleeping.

[...]

My first attempts to sleep better meant keeping the phone close. I downloaded an app of soothing noises, listened to a crackling fire through headphones and, when this didn’t work, turned it to full volume, which your phone warns can damage hearing. It makes as much sense as deciding that, because a campfire isn’t warm enough, you should put your face on it.

After a time, Sommers found himself sitting in a gallery cafe with his mom and sister, as he explained his desire to rid himself of the phone. But he needed its one unarguably crucial function: the alarm. Two days later, however, he would be unwrapping a retro alarm clock from the gallery shop, and it would change his life for the better.

At home, I slapped in the AAA battery, set the time and wound the alarm hand round to 6am. That was it. My iPhone is more powerful than Apollo 11 and made things worse: how was this going to help? But the difference was immediate. That night I left the phone on my living room sofa, wondering whether I would last the night without coming to get it. I went to bed. I remember nothing of what happened next. I must have fallen asleep too quickly.

Since then, I have slept fine. The phone’s absence is soothing. Despite still feeling stress, I have not yet felt I have to get my phone in the middle of the night and bring the world rushing in to stave off bad thoughts. I have even slept through my triggers for not sleeping, like going to bed less than seven hours before when I have to get up, which used to lead to me lying awake reflecting how I could no longer get seven hours’ sleep.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: StockSnap/ Pixabay)

“I cannot believe I am in a relationship with a Chinese guy. Chinese dudes were never my type,” says Jason Hung’s 28-year-old Muslim Indonesian girlfriend almost every other day.

She is not criticising me personally, but like many of our Indonesian female friends, she racially profiles men of Chinese descent. We can be rude and unhygienic, among other things, they seem to think.

For a Muslim woman in Indonesia, courage is required if she wants to be in a relationship with a Chinese man, or just admitting to having feelings for one. Social, cultural, and religious obstacles await the woman should she dare to traverse that path.

“If I meet the wrong guy, I am wasting my 20s and may end up failing to find a husband,” several Indonesian female friends have explained.

This racial bias against Chinese men has its historical roots dating back to the late 60s. Check out the story over at the South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: SCMP)