Namaste! A new study found that seven days of meditation did more than simply calm the mind — it actually rewired participants’ brains. When combined with other mind-body techniques, meditating was associated with pain relief, immune activation, enhanced neuroplasticity, and more. The subjects meditated for a few hours at a time, but even 10 minutes a day can be beneficial. As we kick off a new week, let this be your sign to try your own seven-day meditation practice. Here’s a simple guided exercise to start with. — the Nice News team
Featured Story
How a NYC Woman’s Handwritten Signs Bring Out the Best in Strangers
Junaid Bhat/@finalgaze
When Megan Keaveny didn’t get a great response to the flyers she posted asking strangers to share their good news using a QR code, the New York City transplant opted for a more direct approach. She took a black marker to some poster board and wrote “Tell Me Something Good.” Then she stood on the sidewalk with her phone ready to record, held up the sign, and hoped for the best. “I got so fed up with doomscrolling that I was down to try anything to spread some goodness in any way that I could get my hands on,” Keaveny, 34, tells Nice News. And judging by the reception her videos receive on TikTok and Instagram — she has over 78,000 followers under the handle @signswithmeg — the idea is working. At the link below, watch the sometimes lighthearted, sometimes poignant interactions she has with strangers who are eager to share their good news.
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Snorkeler’s Chance Photo Sheds New Light on Baby (Giant) Salamanders
NPS / Jailyn Hoskins (Environment for the Americas)
A cluster of something unusual caught Michael Reichmuth’s attention while he was snorkeling in a Northern California creek last September. The National Park Service fisheries biologist snapped a photo of what he thought were fish — and swam away with what actually turned out to be the first image of newly hatched California giant salamanders in the wild. This fortuitous moment offers a valuable glimpse into the notoriously elusive species, which rarely shows up in traps and often hides under rocks. The amphibians are even classified as a species of “special concern” partly because so little is known about their biology, population trends, and earliest life stages. “With so little data, every observation counts,” the park service wrote in a recent article. “This one photo, along with Reichmuth’s account of where and when he took it, helps us understand giant salamander nesting [habitats]. It also adds to what we know about things like the real-world timing of their larval development. This information is crucial for giant salamander research and conservation.”
Culture
The World Is Getting Fired Up by Tokyo Pizza
Pizza Studio Tamaki/Instagram
Pizza is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Japanese food, but that may soon change. Tokyo-style pies recently caused a stir in New York when two pop-ups from renowned Japanese pizzaiolos sold out — leaving many craving a slice or four. But first, what exactly is Tokyo pizza? It may look like a classic Neapolitan pie, but it breaks the fundamental rules of Italian pizza, featuring a less soupy middle, fluffy outer edge, and charred crust with a hint of wood smoke, per Food & Wine. It’s also often seasoned with Okinawan salt crystals to achieve “shio no shigeki” (a “salt punch”) and bring out the flavors. The unique iteration has been around for decades. Susumu Kakinuma, widely regarded as the “godfather” of Japanese pizza, invented it after studying the craft in Naples (solely through observation, he said, because no one would hire him). Upon returning to Tokyo, he spent years refining his flour blends, fermentation process, and oven temperatures before opening his legendary pizzeria, Savoy, in 1995. As good things tend to travel, Tokyo pizza is now gaining momentum across the world. New outposts are appearing in Los Angeles and New York (one of the aforementioned pop-ups is soon getting a brick-and-mortar), with further expansions slated for Australia, Indonesia, France, the U.K., and more. Want to try and make it yourself? Check out this recipe.
Environment
Congrats, Jackie and Shadow! Famous Bald Eagle Couple Welcomed 2 New Chicks
Friends of Big Bear Valley
There are two new chicks on the block in California’s Big Bear Valley (and three more on Santa Cruz Island). Beloved bald eagles Jackie and Shadow welcomed a pair of eaglets into the world over Easter weekend — and the whole thing was captured on camera, much to the delight of wildlife lovers. The first (darling) chick emerged from its shell Saturday, April 4, at 9:33 p.m. PT after a 36-hour hatching process, followed by the second (equally darling) chick the next morning. Both siblings are “looking great,” according to the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley, which operates the 24/7 nest livestream. This moment marks a major triumph for Jackie and Shadow following a failed clutch earlier this year. Now the work continues for mom and dad as they stay busy protecting their chicks and nourishing them with snacks, as well as their saliva, which contains electrolytes and antibodies. Right now, Friends of Big Bear Valley is calling the little ones “bobbleheads” due to their weak neck muscles and adorably wobbly heads, but their official monikers will come from third graders at a local school, according to the Los Angeles Times.Watch the livestream footage for nonstop cuteness while we await the news of their names.
How do we really ever know if the red you see is the red everyone sees? And as such, how does one describe colors in words? That’s a question lexicographer Kory Stamper had when editing a Merriam-Webster dictionary and reading its vivid, whimsical, and, in her estimation, sometimes nonsensical color definitions. The experience sent her down a rabbit hole of color psychology, science, and production, and the result is True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color — From Azure to Zinc Pink, a story about hues and their fascinating history, told through 20th-century events.
It was with great sadness that Hacks fans (much of the Nice News team included) learned Season 5 would be the series’ last, but it’s with great excitement that we’ll be tuning in each week to watch. The Emmy-winning comedy series has proven a late-career highlight for fan favorite Jean Smart, who plays cynical stand-up comic Deborah Vance, and a career-propeller for up-and-comers Hannah Einbinder, Megan Stalter, and Robby Hoffman. The first episode dropped Thursday on HBO Max.
This Week in History
Apollo 13 Returns to Earth
April 17, 1970
NASA—UPI—Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
About two-and-a-half days into a mission to the moon, the crew of Apollo 13 had just finished a television broadcast wishing viewers back on Earth a good night when an oxygen tank exploded. The explosion caused the other tank to fail, and at 200,000 miles from Earth, the astronauts’ regular supply of electricity, light, and water was lost. With only days left of their critical resources, Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert (who spoke the famous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem”) communicated with ground controllers to facilitate a return to Earth. The men moved from the spacecraft into the lunar module and used the moon’s gravity to “slingshot” them around it until our planet’s gravity pulled them back down. They landed safely, and that “free-return trajectory” method is the same one Artemis II employed on Friday. Watch Apollo 13’s splashdown here (and click here for the scene from the feature film).
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