No, she doesn’t. But people describe the singer’s career trajectory as voodoo-like, as her career had a string of karmic episodes. Her fans have a somewhat problematic term for it as well, calling these karmic episodes as “tayvoodoo,” as Paper Magazine details: 

The obvious application of tayvoodoo is Kanye West's ongoing fall from grace, after years of feuding with Swift's camp following that infamous 2009 VMAs incident. But Swifties also use the term to describe how the careers and personal lives of Swift's more minor rivals have declined ever since they sided against her.

"I'm not really sure how it originated," the admin of Swift stan account @breathincruel tells me over DM. "But it's based off the fact that every celebrity who does her wrong gets wronged somewhere down the road, whether it has to do with the drama they gave her or not." Meanwhile, Taylor "just stays in her lane and lets karma do its job." On Urban Dictionary, the symptoms of tayvoodoo are listed as "crippling of mental/physical health, diminishing professional success, bags stopped, comments flooded, your name trending on twitter (along with #YourNameIsOverParty), irrelevance."

West aside, some of tayvoodoo's most high-profile supposed victims include the singer-songwriter's former beau Calvin Harris and chart rival Kacey Musgraves. Harris, @breathincruel points out, "hasn't been nearly as popular" since he disputed her songwriting credit on their hit track "This Is What You Came For" in 2016. Musgraves, who recently announced her impending divorce from Ruston Kelly (a tragedy, given their relationship inspired one of the most gorgeously romantic albums of all time), was perceived to slight Swift by allegedly "liking" an Instagram post by Scooter Braun at the apex of his and Swift's battle over her former label Big Machine. (Musgraves has never publicly commented on the feud.)

image via wikimedia commons

What better way to inform people about the pandemic by dressing up as Grim Reaper? It sure will get the message across that the sickness can cause severe deaths! A Florida man donned a “Grim Reaper” costume and warned beachgoers about the pandemic. 

image via wikimedia commons

All for the sake of a prank, three teens are facing disorderly conduct charges for covering people’s property with cheese slices. How much did they spend on cheese to be able to cover a home, and two cars with it? Two 17-year-olds and an 18-year-old tossed the sandwich slices at a residence in Girard, Pennsylvania. 

image via Philly Voice

The Photography Deck is a camera reference guide printed on a deck of playing cards. So not only can you play card games with your friends, you can also relearn some photography concepts as you play! Creator Eric Bohring organized the contents of the resource by sorting the concepts into each suit, as My Modern Met detailed: 

To organize this resource, creator Eric Bohring assigned each suit its own category of information: spades represent camera basics; hearts are about composition; clubs tell you about technical aspects; and diamonds highlight shooting styles. This array of knowledge gets to the nitty-gritty of photography and discusses concrete topics like ISO and shutter speeds as well as more subjective aspects such as finding negative space or patterns in a composition. Each card highlights this information through custom artwork that is minimalist in style to let the tricks and tips shine.

The Photography Deck is now available for pre-order. There are a variety of deck designs available, including a variant that is extra waterproof and can withstand a day at the beach. Select your deck by visiting the deck’s Kickstarter page.

image via My Modern Met

Police officers from Fort Lauderdale captured a renegade kangaroo hopping through the city streets. The officers patted Jack, the kangaroo, and placed him in the back of a police cruiser. It turns out that Jack was under the care of Anthony Macias, as Oddee detailed: 

It didn’t take authorities long to locate the owner, who lived just a few blocks away from where cops apprehended the animal. Anthony Macias forgot to latch the gate after taking out his recycling bins earlier.

“I guess he just punched his way through,” he told the Sun Sentinel. Also, do you think that paper has an animal-hijinks beat that someone gets to cover? 

Macias got the kangaroo, named Jack, from a friend who was moving out of the area and didn’t want him anymore. Maybe because he missed being able to put drinks on his coffee table? Watch the tail. Unfortunately, Fort Lauderdale doesn’t allow kangaroo ownership, so Jack’s living at the police horse stables for his safety

image via wikimedia commons

People who are more inclined to spend hours on social media have personalities that indicate they enjoy angering and embarrassing others, according to a study from Michigan State University and California State University at Fullerton. Social media usage of 472 university students were tracked for the study, as FastCompany detailed: 

A fascinating study of 472 university students tracked their usage on two top platforms for 18-to-24-year olds: Snapchat (2.64 hours per day) and Facebook (2.28 hours per day). Researchers found that users displaying addictive behavior were also more likely to be motivated to be cruel and callous and to use others for personal gain.

“Our results demonstrate that individuals who have a greater preference for these types of rewards display greater problematic use of both platforms,” write the researchers, who note that these traits are also associated with narcissism and psychopathy and have previously been correlated with addictive internet use. They write that social media sites unwittingly “cater to people who seek rewards from being cruel, such as through cyberbullying or various aggressive online behaviors.”

The researchers hope that their study will help clinicians treat addicted patients by better understanding the social rewards that may be driving them.

The same study also found users logging longer hours with more addictive behaviors on Snapchat, but more frequently attempting to quit Facebook.

image via FastCompany

We’ve seen support animals helping people go through therapy or tough times, but usually people just touch or interact with these animals, not take care of them. Israeli psychotherapist Yono Yehuda provides therapy for people with mental health conditions by letting them take care of animals. The Guardian has more details:

“With humans, it’s survivor thinking: if I’m nice to people, they will be nice to me,” says Yoni Yehuda, an Israeli psychotherapist, as his cat Jack Daniels licks water from a jug on his office table.

With animals, he says, there is no apparent quid pro quo. We help them for purer reasons, often with no expectation of a return. “It’s giving from something that is very clean inside.”

This concept is the foundation of the professor’s work – providing therapy for people with mental health conditions by asking them to care for animals. There is healing, he believes, deeply rooted in the animal-human relationship. “The first animal-assisted psychotherapist was God,” he says, as a parrot pecks at the mosquito netting on his office window.

Animals were used in mental health institutions in the late 18th century to encourage socialisation. Today, a patient might be given time to stroke a dog, which has been shown to reduce stress. Practitioners say animals can also motivate patients to stay in treatment, or be used as a metaphor for their own struggles. Some traumatised people prefer not to interact with another person at all.

image via The Guardian

Polar bears might be extinct by 2100 if climate change continues, according to research. With the shrinking sea ice cutting short the time bears have for hunting seals, polar bears are now being driven into starvation. If polar bears are starved, their chances of surviving Arctic winters without food plummet, as Rappler details: 

"The bears face an ever longer fasting period before the ice refreezes and they can head back out to feed," Steven Amstrup, who conceived the study and is chief scientist of Polar Bears International, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

On current trends, the study concluded, polar bears in 12 of 13 subpopulations analyzed will have been decimated within 80 years by the galloping pace of change in the Arctic, which is warming twice as fast as the planet as a whole.

There is not enough data for 6 others to make a determination as to their fate.

"By 2100, recruitment" – new births – "will be severely compromised or impossible everywhere except perhaps in the Queen Elizabeth Island subpopulation," in Canada's Arctic Archipelago, said Amstrup.

image via wikimedia commons

Yumiko Ukon and her late husband have been serving rice balls since 1960. Their restaurant, Onigiri Bongo, makes 1,500 rice balls a day in fifty-five flavors. Customers who crave for the classic snack in non-traditional flavors will have to wait up to five hours in line just to get them. 

What’s the next great thing after watching mukbang vlogs? Watching cats eat huge amounts of food. Watch how these cats react into seeing and eating a large tiger shrimp for the first time. 

Facebook announced that they will be releasing Instagram Reels, their own version of the widely-used app TikTok. Instagram Reels is described as a video platform that lets people create interactive short clips set to music. Doesn’t it sound like TikTok? Well, we’ll know when the app is officially launched. For now Instagram Reels is being tested in France, Germany, Brazil, and India.

image screenshot via USA Today

If the lengthy explanation of the different factors that affect skin color bore you, how about listening to Bill Nye the Science Guy? Watch as he explains how ultraviolet light and geographical location affect the color of skin.

image screenshot via TikTok

Some people don’t really pay attention to how a meal was cooked, let alone to how that particular meal was discovered. Did you know that the flat iron steak began as an experiment? It was a result of an experiment in a meat science laboratory in 2001, as The Hustle details: 

In 1998, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association — the industry’ largest trade group — gave a pair of meat scientists $1.5m in grant money and a seemingly impossible mandate: Find a new cut of meat that centuries of professional butchers had missed.

Three years later, the world was introduced to the flat iron steak.

In its first several years of life, the flat iron steak — a very thin, very tender cut from beneath the shoulder blade of the cow — topped 92m pounds per year in sales, about as much as the porterhouse and the T-bone steak combined.

Back then, it was rare to see a new steak enter the market. The flat iron became a proof-of-concept for the industry — and it left the beef titans craving more new cuts.

image via The Hustle

The usual messages attached to flowers are romantic, thankful, or sorrowful in nature. Some flowers are sent to celebrate an event, some are sent to offer condolences. But there are some flowers that are sent with outrageous messages that will leave you uncomfortable or laughing. Florists share the most outrageous card messages they had to deliver, with one florist sending a card that said, 'To my one and only — I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was married.’ Check out the other messages over at Buzzfeed. 

image via Wikimedia Commons

If you have some of your old computers and gaming consoles boxed up somewhere in your home, don’t just throw them away! Some people are willing to pay a lot of money just to get their hands on some retro computers and consoles. Computers like the Apple-1 are worth hundreds or thousands times more than their original selling prices. Mental Floss has a list of some retro tech that will sell for hundreds of dollars, so check if you have these: 

1. Apple-1 // $458,711 (ROI: 68,707 percent)
2. Kenbak-1 // $41,946 (ROI: 5493 percent)
3. Scelbi-SH // $13,000 (ROI: 2500 percent)
4. Altair 8800 // $8125 (ROI: 1751 percent)
5. Elf II // $340 (ROI: 240 percent)
6. Jupiter Ace // $455 (ROI: 230 percent)
7. Imsai 8080 // $1782 (ROI: 197 percent)
8. Acorn Atom // $403 (ROI: 167 percent)
9. Heathkit HS // $668 (ROI: 76 percent)
10. ZX-80 // $348 (ROI: 74 percent)

image via Mental Floss