Author: Shaunacy Ferro

If you’re working out but don’t feel like you’re in any better shape, you might be a “nonresponder.” According to The New York Times, a recent study from Queen’s University in Canada finds that how people respond to exercise regimens varies substantially, and what works for one person may not help another person improve at all.

But that doesn’t mean those nonresponders will never get into shape. They just may need to change up their exercise routine for one that is better suited to their body. The study tested two exercise regimes on 21 active adults. Each of them spent three weeks doing endurance training (like running for an extended period of time) or interval training (doing quick bursts of strenuous exercise, like in CrossFit). After a few months of rest between workout periods, they then switched one routine for the other. Endurance trainees rode a stationary bike four times a week for 30 minutes, while high-intensity interval trainees did 20 seconds of hard pedaling on the bike with a 10 second rest after each interval.

Some of the participants showed improvements in physiological markers of fitness like heart rate and oxygen capacity after one of the workout periods, but others didn’t improve at all. Some were even in worse shape than before they began their assigned regimen. However, each individual responded to one of the workouts, even if they didn’t see results in the other.

To figure out which workout works for you, you’ll need to measure your fitness levels, using your pulse as your baseline number, at the beginning of a new workout routine. Then, after a month of either endurance or interval training, you should check to see if you’ve made improvements in your heart rate, according to the Times. If you haven’t, you should switch to another routine.

[h/t The New York Times]

The new Finnish trial is meant to test how people behave when they receive money from the government each month with no strings attached, The Guardian reports. Two thousand unemployed Finnish citizens will receive about $580 (€560) per month under the plan, which began January 1. The money will be deducted from whatever other government benefits they receive.

The idea of universal income has been tested in several regions of the world, including Ontario, Canada; Utrecht, the Netherlands; and Otjivero, Namibia. The Silicon Valley start-up incubator Y Combinator is currently funding a small study in Oakland, California. However, basic income programs are not embraced by all lawmakers or citizens. This summer, a large majority of Swiss voters voted against a proposal to give every citizen basic income regardless of their work status or salary.

The idea behind basic income is that when people get a little extra money each month, they have the freedom to pursue better jobs, instead of just saying “yes” to the first available job, and can better cope with the automation of industry putting people out of work. Critics, however, believe that it could tank the economy, making people lazy by giving them the option not to work.

The Finnish program aims to reduce the number of people who stay out of the workforce or refuse short-term and low-paying jobs for fear of losing the government benefits they depend on. Since the trial is limited to 2000 randomly selected people, researchers will be able to compare the effect of receiving basic income to those people who depend on unemployment benefits but don’t receive the basic income paycheck. The program is set to last for two years.

[h/t The Guardian]

The winter holidays often bring some vacation time and the desire to curl up by a fireplace with hot chocolate. You might as well do something productive with your hands as you pass your time watching the snow fall, so it’s a great time to tackle knitting projects that will make your winter that much more enjoyable. Here are a few to consider:

1. WARM SOCKS

Keep your feet toasty with home-knitted socks, which you can customize with whatever patterns or colors you want. This free pattern promises that they are “so simply designed that they almost make themselves,” so there’s really no excuse for cold tootsies.

2. SLIPPERS

Slippers are another easy way to keep your feet warm and protected from the dirt on your front porch or the weirdness of going down to your basement laundry room in bare feet. Plus, you can customize them to your actual foot size instead of dealing with the too-small or too-big sizes offered by store-bought slips. Try out these free patterns, many of which are designed for beginners.

3. CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS

Get a head start on next year’s holiday decorating by knitting your own stocking. Rather than boring red-and-white stockings, go for for something a little more custom—reindeer-decorated stockings or stockings emblazoned with the name of their owner.

4. STUFFED TOYS

Stuffed animals don’t need to come from a store. You can fashion your own crochet lions, knit teddy bears, and yarn dolls. These patterns are just a few dollars each, and are sure to become beloved possessions. Plus, if they get a little too well-loved and start to wear, you can always do your own repairs.

5. FINGERLESS GLOVES

Making fingerless gloves can be relatively easy, depending on the pattern. They’re great for wearing in cold offices when you still need to be able to type, or even for doing more knitting when the house is chilly.

6. KNIT HATS

Once you get the hang of circular needles, hats are a relatively quick knitting project to complete, giving you that instant satisfaction of a job well done. From slouchy beanies to cable knit caps to berets, you can make just about any style of hat in whatever color pattern you want. Add buttons or switch up your stitch to make a hat with a dash of flair.

7. EAR WARMERS

Because they’re just a circle of fabric, ear warmers are super easy to throw together, and they’ll keep your head nice and warm on freezing days. You can choose how thick to make your ear warmers depending on the weather in your area. If a simple headband-style ear warmer isn’t fashion-forward enough for you, you can add knitted decoration like flowers. But they don’t have to be overtly feminine in style, either. Some patterns will show you how to make a slightly more gender-neutral accessory, so everyone you know can enjoy properly warm ears all winter.

8. A COFFEE OR TEA COZY

Winter is a time to stay warm, but not too warm. Enjoy your hot beverages without burning your hands by making your own cozies. If you’re out at a coffee shop, using your own coffee sleeve is a great way to feel just a little less guilty about your disposable cup use. Check out this list of free patterns.

9. AN ARM-KNIT BLANKET

You don’t even need knitting needles for this one. The Ukraine-based designer Anna Marinenko makes blankets out of massively thick yarn, sometimes using her hands instead of needles. (She also sells specially crafted 2-inch thick needles for “bulky knitting” on her Etsy page.) You can craft a blanket so big—with stitches a full 3 inches thick—you’ll feel like you’ve stolen a giant’s comforter. There are free instructions on how to knit with your arms from the blog Flax and Twine, or you can watch the video above.

Toss your New Year’s resolutions to eat healthy and lay off the booze out the window. Rogue Ales, the Oregon-based brewery, is releasing a candy-flavored beer.

The Hazelutely Choctabulous might be a mouthful to order, but according to the company, the mixture of two of Rogue’s beers has been a fan-favorite at the brewery’s pub for a while now, so they’re making the secret menu item available to the rest of the country. It’s a dark beer with nutty notes and a chocolate truffle finish that tastes like a nutty chocolate candy bar. It’s a little unusual because unlike most chocolate beers, it’s not a straight stout—it’s a combination of Rogue’s chocolate stout and its brown ale, Hazelnut Brown Nectar. The combo ale will be available starting in January 2017.

Until then, there are plenty of chocolate-y beers to try elsewhere. Many breweries make chocolate stouts, including Rogue—which makes its double chocolate stout with Dutch bittersweet chocolate. While you can find other chocolate stouts from Harpoon and Evil Twin, some breweries try for more unique twists on the style. Starting in 2012, Dogfish Head began making Chocolate Lobster Porter, and during the fall, Coney Island makes a chocolate pumpkin ale. Sadly, those two brews are only available seasonally.

It’s not to early to think about tax season, even if April is months away. There are plenty of tax-deductible expenses you can take advantage of last-minute up until the December 31 deadline.

1. DONATE, DONATE, DONATE.

If you donate to a charity with 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, you can take the amount of that gift off your taxes. If you receive some sort of compensation for your donation—like when you donate to a public radio drive and receive a tote bag in return—you can only take off the fair market value of the item from your taxes. The same applies for donating used items like clothing. You don’t have to donate cash, either. You can donate stock or property, and in doing so, not only deduct the market value of the donation, but avoid paying capital gains taxes on the appreciation.

To take advantage of these tax deductions, you need to itemize the deductions on the IRS’s form 1040 [PDF], and you should keep all your receipts. Your accountant or tax software—like TurboTax or H&R Block—can help you decide if itemizing is a good idea.

2. SET UP AN IRA.

Technically, you don’t have to do this before 2017 rolls around—you have until April 18 to open and fund an IRA and reap the benefits this fiscal year. But what better way to put your holiday money to a good cause (for you)? If you already have a retirement plan at work—which you should, if it’s available—and make less than $117,000 a year, you can contribute up to $5500 to an IRA per year. (If you’re over 65, you can contribute more.) However, the amount you can take off your taxes varies by how much money you make. If you make more than $61,000 per year, you can only take a partial deduction, while if your salary falls below that line, you can take the full contribution off your taxes.

If you don’t have a retirement plan at work and are single, you can take the full deduction no matter what your yearly income is. Note that these deductions only apply to traditional IRAs, not Roth IRAs, the type of retirement fund in which taxes are taken out of the contribution immediately, and are tax-free when you access the funds once you reach the qualifying age.

3. SPEND YOUR FSA MONEY.

If you don’t use the money you contributed to your Flexible Spending Account by the end of the year, you’ll lose it. The money that you put into that account isn’t subject to income or Social Security taxes, so you’re saving money when you load up your FSA account at the beginning of the year by lowering your taxable income. But if you forget to use it all, those savings are not much good. However, certain employers do let you roll over some unused FSA money into the new year. Not going to the doctor in the next few days? Check out the FSA store online. There are probably more eligible purchases than you realize.

4. BUY SUPPLIES FOR YOUR SCHOOL OR YOUR FOSTER PET.

If you’re a teacher or a pet lover, there may be tax deductions you don’t know you can take. They may not seem like similar endeavors, but both usually involve paying for supplies on your own dime, whether it’s colored pencils and safety scissors or dog food and vet bills. For K-12 teachers who pay up to $250 on school supplies out of pocket or people who are fostering (not adopting!) a dog, those costs can come off your tax bill.

5. SIGN UP FOR A CAREER-RELATED CLASS.

Job hunting qualifies for a tax break, as long as you’re looking for gigs in your current field. If you’re paying for career counseling, resume prep, or travel to look for a new job, you can take those costs off your tax bill. The printing cost of making all those resumes counts, too. However, those expenses have to exceed 2 percent of your gross income.

6. SELL OFF SOME BAD STOCKS.

If you happen to hold stocks, bonds, or mutual funds that haven’t done so well this year, you can sell them off and save money on your taxes. Basically, if you’ve made any money off your investments this year, you’re subject to capital gains taxes. If you sell some stocks for a lower price than initially you paid for them, those losses are subtracted from your taxable gains. This is known as tax-loss harvesting.

And if you’re not investing your money, consider doing so as soon as you can. You’ll need long-term investments in order to grow your money in the long run. If you don’t know the first thing about investing, there are plenty of startups that will help you out.

7. GO TO THE DOCTOR OR ACUPUNCTURIST

Certain medical expenses are tax-deductible, even if you don’t use your FSA card. If you spend more than 10 percent of your gross income on medical expenses, including insurance premiums, doctor’s visits, medical procedures, and prescriptions. Some qualifying expenses you might not know about include breast pumps, acupuncture, pregnancy tests, and contacts or glasses. If you’ve got an unpaid medical bill sitting around, pay it ASAP so you can add that to your 2016 expenses. If you don’t exceed the minimum necessary for the deduction, even if you’re really close, you don’t get it.

In 1902, Scotland sent explorers on an official national expedition to Antarctica, headed up by polar scientist and naturalist William S. Bruce. In a uniquely Scottish twist, the two-year-long Scottish National Antarctic Expedition included a position that probably no other country found necessary: an official piper.

Gilbert Kerr, the official piper of the Scotia crew, was tasked with maintaining morale—but he became a postcard icon by posing for the photo above, in which he played the bagpipes in full Highland dress next to an Emperor penguin. The bird, according to the Royal Scottish Geographic Society, “was tethered to a large cooking-pot packed full of snow.” The photograph was taken by Bruce in March 1904 while the Scotia was stuck in the ice on the Weddell Sea.

The idea of Kerr bringing out the bagpipes for a bunch of penguins was apparently also intended to test the effect of music on them, according to the 1906 record of the voyage by Bruce and other members of the expedition, The Voyage of the ‘Scotia’: Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration in Antarctic Seas. The penguins were not impressed. The explorers wrote that “there was no excitement, no sign of appreciation or disapproval, only sleepy indifference.” They further noted that “it was just all that one man could do to lead one up to the ship: with their beaks they bit fairly hard, and with their long flipper-like wings could hit out decidedly hard.” Kerr’s bagpipes were later donated to a Scottish battalion during World War I and lost at the Battle of the Somme.

These days, of course, polar explorers would not be allowed to tie a penguin to a pot for a photo op. All Antarctic wildlife is protected, and the continent is a nature preserve. However, in Antarctic weather, it’s possible that the man in a kilt (it’s hard to tell in black and white, but those look like bare legs above his socks) was almost as uncomfortable as the wild penguin tied to a kitchen pot. And who knows which poor crew member got bitten in the process.

Other cultures may love the bidet, but Americans have long been loath to give their butts a good wash after pooping. But, if we’re going to get down and dirty about it, bidets can vastly improve your bathroom life—and for a relatively low price, too.

Mental_floss took a test run with a toilet-mounted bidet from Tushy, a company of “toilet crusaders” founded in 2014 that sells non-electric bidet attachments. Tushy’s models come in warm or cool and start at $69; we tested the cold-water-only device because hooking hot water up to the attachment requires open access from your toilet to the pipes under your sink. Our verdict? Once you get used to it, it’s not as bad as it sounds. Who doesn’t want a little cold spray to wake up in the morning?

As promised, the installation was relatively simple. Even with no previous knowledge of where toilet water even came from, this first-time plumber was able to install the splitter that allows you to channel water to both your toilet tank and the bidet (without mixing the two). The bidet comes with Teflon plumber’s tape, which is used to seal the joints where the parts connect. (Full disclosure: For a hot second during installation it seemed like no amount of tape would stop the water from spraying out of the connection between the hoses, but eventually the magic sealing tape worked and the water stopped leaking onto the bathroom floor.) A month later, the amateur plumbing job has held, so the easy-installation claim gets a thumbs-up.

The addition of that adjustable spray of water to a bathroom routine is, quite honestly, eye-opening. So fresh! So clean! Without getting too gross, it’s the difference between cleaning off your muddy rain boots with a hose or wiping them with a paper towel. For ladies, it’s a more pleasant way to get through the mess of a period, and if you’re spending a lot of time sitting on the pot, using water is a great way to avoid unwanted toilet paper chafe. Since you’ll be using less toilet paper, using a bidet also saves you money (especially if you rent your home and your landlord pays your water bill).

At first blush it might seem like the extra water a bidet uses with each flush would be wasteful, but compared to the manufacturing of toilet paper, a bidet is gentler on the environment. According to one estimate, it takes 37 gallons of water to create a single roll of toilet paper, and Tushy reports that Americans use 57 sheets of toilet paper every day. Compare that to the 1.3 gallons of water a week it takes for the typical user to splash themselves with the bidet, and the winner is clear.

Lest you leave the restroom dripping wet, a little bit of toilet paper is necessary to dry yourself after using the bidet. But if you are really looking to be eco-friendly, Tushy sells towels to replace your toilet paper. For someone who has used toilet paper for decades, the prospect of wiping your bum with a reusable towel (especially one that’s 100 percent bamboo fiber and soft enough to become your favorite face cloth) is horrifying. How is this sanitary?

In search of answers, mental_floss reached out to the company’s PR team. According to Tushy’s Elliot Friar, many people who have “mastered using Tushy” only wash their towels every few days. If you clean yourself thoroughly with the bidet, the only thing standing between you and truly green washroom habits is your own adherence to cultural bathroom norms. “They’re definitely something new and go against the booty belief systems we’ve created as a culture for hundreds of years,” Friar says.

In short: If you love your butt, get the bidet. A Japanese toilet that heats up and plays music may be overkill, but you can find bidet attachments on Amazon for as low as $20. Tushy’s bidets are more stylish than your average attachment, and the price reflects that. Either way, your bum and Mother Nature will thank you.

The Christmas tree worm, Spirobranchus giganteus, has some flashy gills. While the worms bury themselves in coral, only their colorful fir-shaped radioles—appendages they use for respiration and eating—are visible. They also make the world visible to the worm: That’s where their eyes are located.

Their bright-orange eyes are hidden inside the creature’s gills. If you look very closely, you can see them tucked away in the darkest-colored part of the animal like Christmas presents with neon wrapping paper.

 
The Christmas tree worm’s obscured peepers might be the only example of eyes located on gills in the animal world, as marine biologist Michael Bok told ScienceNews. Unfortunately for the worm, eyes shrouded by branch-like gills can be limiting. The Christmas tree worm can only see what’s directly in front or behind it, and when a shadowy predator passes by, the worm sucks its radioles down out of sight. Bok calls the worm’s eye position “really silly.” But, since most other fan worms don’t even have eyes at all, the Christmas tree worm is actually pretty far ahead in the visual acuity game.

Scuba divers from the Indo-Pacific to the Caribbean are fond of spotting the creatures on coral reefs, but they have to maintain a little distance lest they spook the worms into hiding. Earlier this year, scientists from UCLA studying this hiding behavior among Christmas tree worms in Mo’orea, French Polynesia, found [PDF] that the animals don’t seem to find strength in numbers: The more worms in an area, the more time individual worms spent hidden in the coral. Conversely, worms with only a neighbor or two spent more time in the open. It’s possible that a lot of eye-catching radioles in one place make the worms far too conspicuous to their predators, which include sea urchins, sea stars, flounders, and stingrays.

Soft, pliable robots are charting new terrain in engineering, allowing machines to replicate the flexibility of biological appendages like octopus limbs and human hands. Now, a new robot design created at Harvard is even more dexterous than previous technologies. It can replicate the uber-complex movements of human joints, bending and twisting like a finger, wrist, or knee.

When you bend your thumb in toward your wrist, it’s not just a single movement; that makes it difficult for a machine to mimic. Recreating organic movement in an artificial body requires multiple actuators, the part of a machine that controls a movement. “The design is so complicated because one actuator type is not enough to produce complex motions,” Fionnuala Connolly, one of the paper’s authors and a graduate student in Harvard’s engineering program, said in a press statement. “You need a sequence of actuator segments, each performing a different motion.”

The Harvard engineers tackled this problem by created a mathematical model of a fluid-powered movement. They used this model to design a finger-like soft robot that can bend and twist at the same time in response to only one pressure source.

This type of robotic design could be used in the future to create robotic arms or wearables that assist with human movement. The research paper is available in PNAS.

“Merry Christmas” is a special greeting in English, since it’s the only occasion we say “merry” instead of “happy.” How do other languages spread yuletide cheer? Ampersand Travel asked people all over the world to send in videos of them saying “Merry Christmas” in their language, and while the audio quality’s not the best, it’s a fun holiday-themed language lesson.

Feel free to surprise your friends and family this year with your new repertoire of foreign-language greetings.