Chances are you know someone whose life has been touched by adoption. Each year, about 135,000 children are adopted by families in the U.S. In honor of World Adoption Day and National Adoption Day both taking place this week, here are 12 people who grew up to become famous figures after finding their permanent homes.

1. GERALD FORD

The 38th President of the United States was born in 1913 and named Leslie Lynch King Jr. after his biological father, but his parents separated soon after his birth. His mother remarried when her son was 2, and legally changed his name to reflect that of his new father: Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. He was adopted and was a preteen when he found out Ford Sr. wasn’t his birth father. “It didn’t make a big impression on me at the time,” Ford once said. “I didn’t understand exactly what a stepfather was. Dad and I had the closest, most intimate relationship. We acted alike. We had the same interests. I thought we looked alike.” He finally met his biological father, who came looking for him when he was in high school, but felt that his true bond was with his stepfather, the only father he actually knew.

2. STEVE JOBS

The Apple visionary was born in 1955 to an unmarried couple from the Midwest. His biological mother’s family didn’t approve of their relationship (his biological father was a Syrian Muslim immigrant), so she moved to San Francisco, had her baby in secret, and put him up for adoption. Paul and Clara Jobs adopted Steve, but only after they signed a pledge that his birth mother insisted on—that the child would attend college. Jobs never met his biological father, and he frequently corrected anyone who didn’t refer to Paul and Clara as his “real parents.” “They were my real parents,” he said. “1000 percent.”

3. SARAH MCLACHLAN

When Sarah McLachlan—the Canadian singer famous for her hit songs like “Angel” and founding Lilith Fair—was about 9 years old, she was told that she’d been adopted shortly after she was born. She’s said it never bothered her because she loved her parents and was too young to fully understand. Her birth mother was a 19-year-old artist in Nova Scotia who would have struggled to raise her child, and though McLachlan did eventually meet her, she’s said she is glad that they both had the opportunity to go on and live their dreams.

4. DARRYL MCDANIELS

One of the founding members of hip hop group Run–D.M.C., Darryl McDaniels was adopted as a baby—but he didn’t find out until he was 35. While writing his autobiography, he called his parents to ask them for details about the day he was born. They revealed to him that they had adopted him when he was just 1 month old. (His wife had always teased him that he didn’t look like anyone in his family, and suddenly they knew why.) The revelation deeply affected him; he had already struggled with some depression in his life, had recently lost his dear friend and bandmate Jam Master Jay, and McDaniels was drinking heavily and even considered suicide (he actually credits Sarah McLachlan’s song “Angel” with getting him through his darkest days). He worked to get through it, and documented his search for his birth mother in a VH1 documentary, DMC: My Adoption Journey, in 2006. They were reunited when he was 41.

5. DAVE THOMAS

Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, was adopted as a baby. He was raised mainly by his adoptive father and grandmother after losing his adoptive mother at 5 and two stepmothers before he was 10. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush asked him to spearhead a national campaign to encourage people to adopt or foster children, and to help businesses understand the importance of offering adoption benefits. Two years later he created the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, dedicated to increasing the number of children placed each year. He testified before Congress in support of adoption tax credits and helped in the creation of an adoption postage stamp that was issued by the U.S. Postal Service in 2000.

6. FAITH HILL

The country singer knew she was adopted from a young age but was told she had been given up because her birth mother had an affair with a married man who wouldn’t leave his wife for her. In reality, the couple did get married and had another child whom they kept. Hill learned the truth when she tracked down her birth mom shortly after she moved to Nashville to pursue a career as a singer. She says that despite loving her family and being happy she was adopted, there was a feeling that something was missing from her life. “I was adopted into this incredible home, a loving, positive environment, yet I had this yearning, this kind of darkness that was also inside me,” she has said. She was awed by her first meeting with her biological mother, who looked just like her.

7. JAMIE FOXX

The Academy Award-winning actor is actually a second-generation adoptee; his mother was adopted as well. He was officially adopted by his maternal grandparents after his parents decided they couldn’t handle having a child when he was 7 months old. His grandmother was 60 when she took him in, and he publicly thanked her in his 2005 Oscar acceptance speech. In 2003 he appeared on “A Home for the Holidays,” a Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption CBS special where he shared his adoption story and encouraged others to adopt or foster as well.

8. DEBBIE HARRY

The Blondie singer was born in 1945 and adopted when she was 3 months old. Her parents told her when she was 4 and she says that they did it in a way that made her feel “quite special.” When she was a teenager she used to fantasize that her birth mother was Marilyn Monroe. Harry says that she thinks her being adopted might be why she is so adventurous, since she felt it didn’t give her any limitations. “I sometimes attribute my, uh, adventurous nature to that… I have an open mind about things,” Harry has said. “It didn’t present me with any borders.”

9. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

The famous African-American scientist was born into slavery in Missouri shortly before the end of the Civil War, although the exact year and date are unknown. He was one of many children born to the only two slaves owned by the Carver family, who were farmers. Almost immediately after his birth, he, his mother, and a sister were kidnapped by raiders. But the Carvers sent someone to look for them and only the infant George was recovered. Once slavery was abolished, they raised him and one of his brothers, James, as their own.

10. RAY LIOTTA

The Goodfellas actor was born in 1954, and given up for adoption at 6 months old, after his unmarried birth parents realized they couldn’t afford to raise him. His adoptive parents told him about it when he was very young, and he even did a presentation on being adopted as a kindergartner. But when Liotta got older and was going to have a child of his own, he worried about what genetic traits they might inherit, so he sought to find his birth mother. “I found my birth mother and found out I have, not an identical twin, but a half brother, five half sisters and a full sister that I didn’t know about until 15 years ago,” he said in 2014. When his biological mom found out the son she gave up was now a famous actor he said she had “a whole different bounce to her voice.” But Liotta remains grateful that he was adopted, though he admits that he struggled with feelings of being given up at times.

11. FRANCES MCDORMAND

McDormand, the Oscar-winning Fargo actress, was adopted by a minister and his wife as an infant. She doesn’t know who her biological mother was, though she was given the opportunity to meet her when she was 18; ultimately she did correspond with her, but decided not to pursue a relationship. McDormand has discussed her adoption and how angry the knowledge of her abandonment makes her feel, but she has also said, “It’s subjective, and every adopted person comes to it differently.” And that also includes her own son—she and husband Joel Coen chose to adopt their child, Pedro, from Paraguay. “And my son will deal with it in his own way,” she said.

12. KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY

The actor and comedian—and one-half of comedy duo Key & Peele—was born to a white woman and her married black co-worker; he was adopted as a baby by another biracial couple. In 1996, at age 25, he found his birth mother. He calls it one of “the most unexpected and crucial and significant and foundational things” that happened in his life. He also says it is the reason he now has such a strong faith. When he met her, he listened to her life story and how she came to give him up for adoption, and then he says he suddenly found himself crying and accepting Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. “So, that was pretty unexpected,” he said. “It’s one of the touchstones in both my spiritual and personal life.”

Bike-sharing systems are everywhere these days, but most people don’t make a habit out of carrying a helmet. To keep cyclists safe, LiveScience reports that a designer, Isis Shiffer, has created a collapsible head protector made from cardboard that can be sold in vending machines and fit easily inside a bag. Shiffer was recently named the winner of this year’s James Dyson Award, an international student design award that’s given to undergraduates or recent graduates.

The EcoHelmet is made from 100 percent cardboard, and it’s coated in a material that makes it resistant to water. The secret to its protective powers lies in its honeycomb pattern, which can absorb the impact of a crash. It’s designed to cost less than $5, and it’s also biodegradable, so cyclists can purchase it—and dispose of it—without guilt.

Shiffer, an avid cyclist, was inspired to create the EcoHelmet after utilizing bike-sharing programs around the globe. “When I was exploring new cities I had no access to a helmet and I didn’t want to spend $30 buying one,” the designer told the BBC.

Shiffer was awarded £30,000 (about $37,000) to refine the helmet’s design. She hopes to pilot it in New York in spring 2017, and might initially provide it to bike-share users for free. Watch how it works in the video below, courtesy of Dezeen.

[h/t LiveScience]

New moms just cannot win. Two new studies published in the journal Maternal & Child Nutrition find that women are criticized when they don’t breastfeed—and even when they do.

Everybody—friends, family, strangers, advertisers, public health officials—wants to tell new mothers what to do. Some of those people are qualified to make recommendations. But those recommendations, while created with the best intentions, don’t always take real-world experience into consideration.

Current recommendations from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are firm: women should exclusively breastfeed their babies for the first six months of their lives. There’s plenty of science to back this idea up; breast milk is a super-duper superfood, providing an infant with nutrients, helpful bacteria, and immune-boosting antibodies and proteins. Scores of studies have linked formula feeding with poor health, obesity, and disease risk. In an expert’s ideal world, every baby would be exclusively breastfed.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a world where breastfeeding is undesirable or downright impossible for many women. It’s a physically demanding and time-consuming endeavor that’s become more common among upper-class women who have the resources to spare. There’s a strong link between formula feeding and poverty, and it’s not because poorer women don’t also want the best for their babies.

Myriad studies have investigated the breastfeeding/formula divide, asking who’s doing it and why. But few have asked how women feel about the way they feed their babies or how it affects the way people treat them. So researchers at the UK’s University of Liverpool conducted two surveys: one of 679 women who at least partially breastfed their babies, and another of 601 women who used infant formula. They asked the women about their current feeding practices and if those differed from the ideas about feeding they’d had while pregnant. They asked how they felt about the way they fed their babies and how they felt other people treated them because of it.

As expected, formula feeding came with some real emotional baggage. The authors note “a worryingly high percentage of mothers experienced negative emotions as a result of their decision to use formula.” Sixty-seven percent of respondent said they felt guilty; 68 percent felt stigmatized, and 76 percent felt the need to defend their choice to others.

But even women who breastfed were stressed by, and judged for, their choice. Fifteen percent of nursing mothers said they felt guilty; 38 percent of nursing mothers felt stigmatized, and 55 percent found themselves defending their decision. Some of their guilt came from introducing formula after breastfeeding. Others felt bad about returning to work while their baby was still nursing. They felt bad that they were neglecting other family members and stigmatized when breastfeeding in public. Women in both studies felt judged by doctors, family members, the media, and other parents. They simply could not catch a break.

Co-author Victoria Fallon notes that less than 1 percent of British women actually breastfeed their infants for a full six months. “We need social reform to fully support and protect those mothers who do breastfeed,” she said in a statement, “and a different approach to promotion to minimise negative emotions among the majority who don’t.”

She notes that well-intentioned public health recommendations can still contribute to stigma, shame, and guilt. “The ‘breast is best’ message has, in many cases, done more harm than good,” she said, “and we need to be very careful of the use of words in future breastfeeding promotion campaigns. It is crucial that future recommendations recognize the challenges that exclusive breast feeding to six months brings and provide a more balanced and realistic target for mothers.”

At this point, it’s kind of crazy not to have Amazon Prime. The yearly subscription service comes with endless perks, from free shipping to streaming excellent shows like Transparent. If the $99 price tag seems like just too much for the ability to have almost anything in existence (truly anything) mailed to you in two days, we have some good news for you: For today only, Amazon is lowering the price of Prime by 20 percent. 

Friday, November 18, Prime will only be $79 starting at 12 a.m. ET until 11:59 p.m. PT. To get the deal, sign up on this landing page. Amazon launched the deal in celebration of its new show, The Grand Tour. On top of getting to watch the automotive show, Prime users also get Amazon Prime Video, Prime Music, Prime Reading, Prime Fresh, and Prime Photos. It’s going to be hard to see the TV over all the loot that’s going to get mailed to your door. 

[h/t Thrillist]

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