Are you tracking your adult child / Dark humor means you're a genius, science says / You and your dog have more in common than you think

The empty nest is full again / Growing up gets less scary with time / Does moving abroad actually change you?

A new Realtor.com analysis finds a record 25.2 million Americans under 35 — roughly one in three — were living with a parent in 2025, and 70% of them have jobs. This isn't a story about unemployed young adults playing video games in the basement. It's a story about a 4-million-unit housing supply gap and a median home price up 34% since 2019. Also: a 30-year study tracking three generations of college students from 1982 to 2022 finds Millennials entered adulthood with significantly more fear of growing up than Gen X or Baby Boomers before them — but that fear fades with age across every generation, suggesting nobody stays scared of adulthood forever. And a new study of 180 British university students finds a year abroad makes you measurably more agreeable and curious, with lower anxiety — but it doesn't overhaul your personality the way the brochures promise. Plus a teleporting FEMA official, smoke grenades in checked luggage, a Carnival cruise brawl, and a snake and a spider sharing a bedroom in Australia. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Negotiating with a woman gets you more, even if you don't know it / Humans might already be able to regenerate body parts / Your old phone is worth more than you think

A new PNAS study of more than 2,400 people finds women achieve the exact same economic outcomes as men in negotiations — but their partners trust them more, like them more, and want to negotiate with them again, even in fully anonymous text-chat negotiations where gender was unknown. The compounding effect projects to a roughly $55,000 earnings advantage over time. Also: Texas A&M researchers have regenerated bone, joints, and ligaments in mice using a two-step treatment that redirects the body's healing response away from scarring — suggesting the capacity for regeneration may never have left us, just gotten switched off. And researchers say the old phones sitting in drawers around the world contain an estimated $67 billion in recoverable critical minerals, and recycling currently meets just 1% of global rare earth demand. Plus a giant street-legal banana, a retired Robocop with a perfect arrest record of zero, an influencer who learned a hard lesson about showing off online, and a man who fell into a vault toilet rescuing his sunglasses. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Almost nobody trusts AI, but what does "trust" even mean / The 6-year-old who shopped alone in Tokyo / Five minutes of walking buys back your whole day

A new Talker Research survey finds 86% of Americans distrust AI-generated results — but the study was commissioned by a content management company with a clear stake in the answer, and the actual complaint underneath the number is more specific and more interesting than blanket distrust. Also: a 6-year-old girl in Tokyo spent months preparing with her parents before completing a solo trip through the city to the grocery store and back — and the show that inspired an entire genre of "free-range kid" content is now a real parenting movement. And Columbia University exercise physiologists confirm that five minutes of walking every 30 minutes of sitting is enough to meaningfully offset the health harms of a sedentary day. Plus tentacled rabbits, a 13-year-old who climbed out of a Disneyland ride mid-drop, a missing giraffe with a $5,000 reward, and a DIY exorcism gone wrong. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Anxious teens don't remember the good stuff / Five days of silence nearly broke a brain / Feeling poorer than your peers wrecks you, even if you're not

A decade-long study of more than 1,400 young people found that 83% of the life events they call most meaningful are positive — graduations, friendships, travel, sports. But teens and young adults with anxiety or depression were far more likely to name a struggle or a loss as their defining moment instead, raising a real question about which came first: the hard life or the hard lens. Also: a Wall Street Journal writer spent five days in total silence at a Buddhist retreat in Massachusetts, and it nearly broke her. And a McGill-led study of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries finds that feeling poorer than your peers wrecks your wellbeing — even when your actual income is identical to theirs. Plus the Titanic artifacts dispute, tentacled rabbits, a pickleball felony, and Russian soldiers catfished by Ukrainian fighters posing as lonely women online. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Empty-shell marriages are ending / Your brain wasn't built for this much bad news / The $1 million starter home

The New York Times reports that older couples who once stayed in "empty-shell" marriages are increasingly unwilling to spend their remaining healthy years that way — longer life expectancy is changing the math on what's worth enduring. Also: a Nature Human Behaviour study of 105,000 headlines viewed six million times confirms that negative words drive clicks — and a developmental psychologist explains why a brain built to track local, immediate threats is now being asked to process a war, a financial shock, and a climate disaster before lunch. And Zillow's new analysis finds a record 242 American cities now have "starter homes" priced at $1 million or more — triple the number from before the pandemic. Plus an 87-year-old's smart lottery decision, a vanished magician, the Red Lobster shrimp justification for invading Greenland, and 5,000 beers in Dallas. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.