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There’s a reason dogs are trusted as emotional companions. If it seems like they have a nearly supernatural ability to sense human emotion, it’s because they practically do. As researchers at the University of Vienna recently found, dogs are especially good at parsing the emotions we humans are expressing with our faces. The study, published in iScience , used fMRI scans to watch what happened inside dogs’ brains while they looked at photographs of human faces showing happiness, sadness, anger and fear. One of the study’s limitations is also one of the reasons the researchers were able to complete it at all. It’s difficult to get humans to sit still for an MRI scan, let alone a dog. The researchers had to use a specific breed, border collies, because they were especially good at sitting still on command. Border collies are great at following social cues and love following human orders. In the first experiment, researchers found that happy human faces ac...

Everyone, get your crochet beanie and chunky owl necklace out of the donate pile. We’re talking about late-2000s indie pop , whether you like it or not. Are these the best indie pop albums of the late 2000s? I wouldn’t say so. But are they still pretty good considering all the other stuff that was coming out at that time? Yeah, they’re not bad. ‘Aim and Ignite’ by Fun. A lot of us like to dunk on Fun. for being the quintessential Millennial indie pop guys. But they did give us “Some Nights” and “We Are Young”, which have aged into their cloying sentimentality pretty well. Before that, however, they debuted in August 2009 with Aim and Ignite . This album featured “Be Calm” as the opening track, which was sort of like a precursor to “We Are Young”. The final chorus of “Be Calm” is the real heavy hitter. “Oh be calm, be calm / I know you feel like you are breaking down / I kno...

Some weeks ask you to dream bigger. This one asks you to be honest about what you’ve already got. Saturn opposing Venus hits exact Friday, stargazer, and whatever you’ve been carrying — a relationship running on hope, a desire you haven’t fully accounted for, an image of yourself you’ve been maintaining for other people — is going to need a clear-eyed look before the week is out. It’s not asking you to give anything up, just to see it clearly. That’s not as grim as it sounds. Leo season closes Saturday, which means the sky is already in transition, asking what comes next. The First Quarter Moon midweek pushes for action rather than contemplation. Uranus squaring the Sun from Thursday adds a jolt to the identity question — not destabilizing, just honest. What this week wants from you isn’t a breakdown. It’s an accurate read. Those are different things; this week knows it. How will your sign fare this week? Aries: March 21 ...

Zara Larsson, proving she’s the sweetest heart on Earth, wrapped up a big festival set and immediately headed to a meet-and-greet with young cancer survivors. As first reported by the Budapest Business Journal , Larsson was a performer at the 2026 Sziget festival . The event is held in Budapest from Aug. 11 through the 16. Larsson was part of the line-up on the fest’s kickoff day, Tuesday, playing the main stage. She delivered a rousing set, with the crowd going wild for her performance. Afterwards, Larsson wasn’t too tired, so she went straight to a planned meet-and-greet with members of the European Youth Cancer Network . Larsson spent time with about 20 young people from 11 European countries, chatting and hearing their stories. One person said that speaking with Larsson was “like talking to a fellow advocate.” Another added that she was “a kind human being.” Check out footage of the event below. View this post on Instagram Zar...

Almost exactly a year after I wrote about how one of the biggest nuclear power plants in Europe was shut down by a swarm of jellyfish that clogged its cooling system, it happened again. According to Reuters , three reactors at France’s Gravelines nuclear power plant were taken offline Monday after a massive jellyfish swarm clogged the systems that draw in seawater to cool the reactors. A fourth reactor was reduced to half power, just in case. This is becoming an annual tradition for the jellyfish, as in August 2025 they did the same thing, shutting down four of six reactors at the very same nuclear power plant. Back then, officials spent hundreds of thousands of euros installing cameras to improve monitoring and arranging for fishing boats to patrol the area. While it sounds like they failed, actually, all did their jobs. The swarm was just too powerful. The fishing boats were deployed this year after early warnings, and the crews got to work using vacuum trucks to suck u...

Seemingly for the first time, a shark has invaded another shark’s privacy by filming them without consent. I don’t think the shark doing the filming consented to having a camera strapped onto its fin, so really, it’s no surprise that humans are ultimately to blame here. We just love invading privacy. According to marine biologists from Florida Atlantic University , the researchers were surprised when a camera attached to a nurse shark recorded a four-minute encounter with a great white off the coast of Boynton Beach, Florida. It wasn’t much of an encounter. It’s mostly just footage of the roughly 10-foot-long great white and the nurse shark swimming around each other. But it provides a fascinating little peek into the day-to-day life of sharks. A Shark Wearing a Camera Accidentally Filmed a Great White Shark The camera was a part of a research project studying shark behavior. What better way to get a sense of what they are up to than by strapping a GoPro to one? Res...