When most people think of Iceland, the first thing that comes to mind is probably ice—lots and lots of ice. However, strangely enough this actually isn’t the case. Iceland is hardly icy at all; on the other hand, Greenland has plenty of ice and isn’t very green. And while Iceland may not have much ice, it does have many unique things to offer the world. Here we delve into one of the happiest countries in the world.

10 Public Nudity

In Iceland there are multitudes of refreshing hot springs. If you visit the country it is very likely that you will pay at least one of them a visit. Like a public pool in the United States, you are expected to shower first before you enter the water, however, if you are shy about your body you might find things slightly difficult on your vacation. In Iceland, people are expected to use similar shower facilities, but you are required to shower without your swimsuit on, and unfortunately, many of these showers don’t have a door to hide you from the outside world.

While some cultures may find this shocking, in Iceland it is a simple matter of hygiene. After all, it isn’t exactly easy to get fully clean while wearing all of your clothes. Of course, generalized public nudity is just as illegal in Iceland as it is anywhere else, so you can’t just strip and take a leisurely walk down the street.

9 Elves

We’ve mentioned them briefly before, but they bear mentioning again. Polls taken over a period of time have shown that the majority of Icelanders believe in elves. These elves usually live in rocky areas, have magical powers, and cause trouble if someone tries to disturb their home. In some cases, bulldozers have been reported to malfunction when trying to work on a supposed elf site. And in Iceland this belief is so important that some people are actually called in to arbitrate with the elves in the hopes of getting them to leave.

Icelandic pop star Bjork has mentioned that record companies prefer to sign Icelandic musicians who admit to believing in elves—perhaps they think it means they have more personality. In any case, despite how strange the belief might be, it persists among many and doesn’t seem likely to go away anytime soon.

8 Midnight Golf

During the months of June and July, Iceland has days with a full 24 hours of precious, beautiful sunlight. While you might think of a variety of things you could do with 24 hours of light in a day, a lot of people in Iceland look at it as a splendid time to catch up on their golf. While the weather can get somewhat cold and rainy on occasion, that doesn’t deter the most spirited golfers, who stick it out regardless. Some who have played golf in Iceland during the midnight sun have described the experience as both surreal and sublime. And while golfers may not see much in the way of trees on a typical Icelandic golf course, they may have to deal with unique challenges—such as lava beds and the fury of angry birds that have had their nests disturbed.

7 Anti-Pornography Laws

Iceland is fairly well known for being liberal when it comes to sexual issues, so it may come as a surprise to outsiders that their government voted to ban strip clubs. However, the government has not limited their sights just to the physical world of stripping. Recently, they have also been considering placing a ban on online pornography. Some may think that this is a backward way of looking at sex, but from their perspective it is actually quite progressive.

You see, Icelanders are not doing this out of any puritanical attitude toward sex, but for feminist reasons. Iceland’s government is close to half female at this point, and it is probably one of the most feminist-friendly countries in the world. The reasoning for the ban is that stripping objectifies women, while some hardcore online porn can be quite violent—all in all, it just gives the wrong message to children.

6 Handball

In Iceland, handball is basically the national sport. When the president of Iceland spoke to the media after a recent Olympic win, he explained how important the sport is to their country. Everyone in the country knows the names of the national team’s players and the overall success of the team is considered very important. Handball is not particularly popular in the United States, or in many parts of Europe, but it enjoys popularity in some parts of the world, including certain Scandinavian countries. Handball has been described as being sort of like soccer, except you actually use your hands. It is actually an incredibly fast-paced and brutal game; scores generally run much higher than soccer and violent play is often perfectly within the rules.

5 Skyr

Eaten regularly as a snack or with meals, the dairy product Skyr is one of the most popular foods in Iceland. However, despite its popularity within the country, it isn’t well known outside of Iceland. That may change soon however, as Russell Crowe recently returned from a trip to Iceland with a love for the stuff and now it will be coming to Fresh Markets throughout the United States.

Skyr is considered by many to be much like yogurt, but it is actually a form of soft cheese and is prized for having a high amount of protein and virtually no fat. Unfortunately, unless you live in Iceland or have a Fresh Market near you, it will probably be difficult to get any of this delicious dairy treat. While there are recipes for it, due to the way it is made with a bacterial culture you need Skyr to make more Skyr. There are substitutes that can be used but the end result won’t be quite the same.

4 The Yule Lads

As you’re probably aware, most countries celebrate something similar to Christmas, but every place usually does it a little differently. Iceland is no exception to this rule. Instead of Santa Claus, Iceland has something called the Yule Lads. These strange lads have an interesting history because they didn’t start out as bringers of Yuletide joy; they were actually descended from trolls and were used the way parents today use the threat of taking away a video game console—to scare small children.

However, in the 1700s a decree was issued that actually made it illegal for parents to do this, and eventually the Yule Lads became a Christmas tradition. The Yule Lads—who have heartwarming names like “Skyr Gobbler, “Window Peeper,” and “Bowl Licker”—each have their own colorful personality. They now visit every year, each one stopping by a day after the other.

3 The Cod Wars

Since the 1950s, Iceland has often clashed with the British over the use of Icelandic waters for fishing. In Iceland, the fishing industry is pretty important and basically serves as the main source of food. So perhaps it is unsurprising that the “cod wars” started back in 1958 when Iceland decided they needed to increase the exclusion zone around their territory—this is the section of water that other countries are not allowed to fish in.

Of course, the British government retaliated by sending their own navy to protect fishermen they had in the area, and considering how these things escalate, it wasn’t long before people were firing shots and ramming boats. Eventually, a diplomatic solution was decided upon and the British backed off. This same scenario ended up playing out twice more over the years, with Iceland eventually increasing the range of their exclusion zone from an original 6.5 kilometers (4 mi) to 320 kilometers (200 mi).

2 Volcanic Energy

Iceland has a ton of volcanic activity. While some countries might be scared to live in the center of a fiery ring of volcanoes, Iceland grabbed nature by its slippery throat and figured out how to use it to their advantage. Roughly 85 percent of Iceland’s energy is from renewable resources, and well over half of that is geothermal alone.

Of course, it didn’t start out as a means of power for most of the country—before geothermal energy became more prevalent, it was mainly just used for basic water heating purposes. However, over time it eventually became used for general electricity needs. On top of everything else though, the most important use for it is heating swimming pools. Iceland has well over 150 public swimming pools, and most of those are kept heated thanks to all-natural volcanic heat.

1 Raw Puffin Heart

Puffins are small birds with black and white feathers; they have cartoonishly oversize beaks and are absolutely adorable. Gordon Ramsay, being no stranger to controversy, recently came under fire for eating the raw heart from a dead puffin he had killed during an episode of his television series The F Word. Animal rights groups were of course up in arms, and many people objected to the cruelty of the act.

However, the people of Iceland would not have batted an eye at his actions. The reason for this is that, in Iceland, raw puffin heart is actually considered a delicacy, and puffins are eaten for food all the time. Ramsay actually had all the proper permits and was cleared of any wrongdoing by the media authorities.

+ Brennivin

If there is one thing Iceland is well known for, it is probably their love of strange cuisine, and this extends to more than just food. Apart from drinking more Coca Cola per capita than anywhere else in the world, Iceland also has a drink all their own that they call Brennivin. This alcoholic beverage has something of a nasty reputation, even among Icelanders. Brennivin is a sort of schnapps distilled from potatoes; this doesn’t sound too bad, but it also uses caraway seeds, and this apparently gives it a vile flavor.

This drink is often consumed alongside an Icelandic fermented shark dish, hakarl. Likely the two are combined because Brennivin only seems good after you’ve just eaten diseased shark meat. Many Icelanders only drink Brennivin if they are trying to show off around people visiting their country, or when they are trying to make an extra show of allegiance to their Icelandic roots.

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There are few things people obsess over more than their cars. They are vessels of personal individualism and convenience. Cars have facilitated many fond memories over the years. Yet, they are always a pain in the neck. Driving errors, constant maintenance, winding lines at the pump are a few of the common annoyances all drivers face. Here are 10 easy tricks to minimize those discomforts and, perhaps, to save your life!

See Also: 10 Surprising Ways To Hack Your Body

10Jump Your Dead Car Battery with a Rope

The Common Problem:

The easiest solution to jump-starting a car is hooking it up to another battery. Most people already schlep around jumper cables. You might as well put them to good use. However, that implies that you can find someone to flag down. If you are stranded in the middle of nowhere, you have to get creative.

The Easy Solution:

This technique only really works for smaller vehicles with a manual transmission. All that is required for this trick is a jack and a rope. The jack props up the frame behind a front tire. Make sure that the car is parked in third gear. Turn the car on. Next, wrap the rope around the elevated tire several times. Give the rope a swift pull. The kinetic energy will get the tires moving. With this temporary fix, try and find a real jump.^[1]

9The Arrow on the Side of Your Fuel Gauge

The Common Problem:

There are a lot of ways one can embarrass themselves at a gas station. Among the most common is pulling your car into a pump only to noticed the tank is on the other side. Back in the car, one has to try and finagle for a pump on the right side. It is a minor squabble, but still an annoying one.

The Easy Solution:

You do not even have to do anything for this hint. Luckily, the car manufacturers were looking out for us all along. They just hid the clue in a place few would notice. Along with the other symbols and warnings on the dashboard, there is often a small arrow on the fuel gauge next to the caricature of a gas pump. The relative position of the arrow corresponds with the fuel filler inlet. Whatever direction the arrow points, that is the side you fill it up on.^[2]

8Toothpaste for Cloudy Headlights

The Common Problem: In adverse weather conditions, cloudy headlights can be the difference between life and death. Proper lighting is an essential part of navigating a storm. Organic debris from the road and the sun’s UV rays remove the protective coating over time. Instead of spending money replacing the blurry ones, there’s an unorthodox tip that you can use so you don’t look like a deer in, well…, headlights.

The Easy Solution:

The logic of this DIY trick is not much more complicated than the idea that toothpaste can clean more than just dentures. First, wash the headlights with soapy water or a cleaning solution like Windex. Next, take a sponge to remove the top layer of dirt. Put a dollop of toothpaste on the headlight. You only need a small amount—about the same that you, hopefully, use every day. Toothpaste with baking soda is the most effective choice. Then, get to brushing. For harder stains, more generous applications of toothpaste may be required.^[3]

7Plunger out Dents

The Common Problem:

Outside of driving, the only real reason to have a car is to look at it. Unseemly scuffs can ruin the automotive experience just like any technical problem. As with another thing looking crappy, it’s time to break out the plunger.

The Easy Solution:

There is no way to really mess this one up. All you need is hot water and a plunger. For minor dents, the hot water may be enough. The heat might cause the metal and plastic to expand back into shape. For most marks, the physical suction of the plunger is necessary. Pour the water over the dented area to add a necessary level of moisture. Place the plunger on the surface. Pull back until the frame is back to its normal shape. This method works best with more recent dents while the surface is still malleable.^[4]

6Hand Sanitizer for Frozen Locks

The Common Problem:

The problems with driving in the snow start before you are even behind the wheel. Ice can jam keyholes making them impossible to open. Unlike the rest of the car, scraping with a pick or thawing out with hot water can damage the lock’s internal workings. There is a much safer and quicker alternative.

The Easy Solution:

Hand Sanitizer kills more than just 99% of germs. One of the main ingredients of hand disinfectants is alcohol. Among the lesser celebrated features of alcohol is its freezing point. To harness that power, apply some of the gel to the tip of a car key. Edge the key into the icy lock for 30 seconds. The prolonged contact with the alcohol will lower the ice’s relative freezing point until it melts. After that, twist the key around and open the door. This comes with the added bonus of having your first line of defense against the coronavirus at the ready!

Outside of Purell, there are a handful of other common household items that can help if you know a cold snap is imminent. To prevent ice from building up on windows overnight, you can scrub potato slices on the windows. The sugars in the root vegetable prevent ice from binding. Spray cooking oil on the doors has a similar effect. The oil pushes the water away.^[5]

5Kitty Litter can Defog a Window

The Common Problem:

After you have unlocked the frozen door, the car is still not necessarily safe to drive. The moisture in the atmosphere will likely cloud the windows. If one does not have time to wait for the foggy windows to defrost, a common item can resolve it in seconds. Do not be concerned about its more advertised use.

The Easy Solution:

Even dog lovers can proclaim the benefits of spare kitty litter. At its most basic level, the general purpose of kitty litter is to soak up moisture. To avoid any unsavory connotations, it is better to get odor free crystals and you definitely want to use new litter, not “used” litter. Pour the mix inside an old sock. Make sure that the socks are tightly bound. When tied off, place the sock on the dashboard. The crystals will absorb the condensation in the air. Additionally, kitty litter can be used for extra traction on icy roads—you just need to find a volunteer to run in front of the car sprinkling it as you go . . .^[6]

4A Shoelace can Unlock a Car

The Common Problem:

Locking your keys in your car is the ultimate hack for car problems. Without keys, you cannot do anything else. If for some reason you ever want to retrieve your cars back, you can MacGyver your door open in a matter of seconds. The keyword here is “your” car. I’m not going to advocate for carjacking, no matter how clever the method. Having said that, here’s 11 Tips For Outrunning The Cops, just in case.

The Easy Solution:

Modern cars are designed to avoid this annoying occurrence. This hint is more practically useful for older models. First step is to take your shoelace out of your shoe. You are going to need the whole thing. Next, tie a small noose-like knot in the middle of the lace. The knot should tighten around the noose as you pull on the ends. Wiggle the lace in the crack between the door. Lower the lack until it’s looped around the head of the lock. Tighten the noose so that is secure around the head of the lock. Jerk up until you can open the door.^[7]

3Put Your Key Under Your Chin

The Common Problem:

Newer cars have gotten rid of the key entirely. These “push to start” vehicles rely on an electronic signal to unlock the doors. Often drivers complain that the fob cannot reach the car. Instead of making the trek to stand next to your car, you can boost the input by sticking the key under your chin.

The Easy Solution:

It sounds like a myth. The facts do not seem to make sense on their face, or more technically under their face. It is true though. The New York Times posited that the possible reason was because the fluids in your head amplified the message. There is some debate on how effective the human brain is as a conductor. Some speculate it increases anywhere from a few car lengths to 85 feet. Either way, it’s a convenient improvement over having to walk to your car.^[8]

2A Carseat Headrest Breaks a Submerged Car

The Common Problem:

In a submerged car, time is of the essence. In a matter of seconds, the ambient water pressure is impossible to overcome. If you do not open your window or door before the pressure imbalance, you just have to wait until equilibrium is restored when the car is filled with water. The delay can be deadly.

The Easy Solution:

You cannot rely on windows to be your escape hatch. You have to build your own. Do not waste oxygen trying to smash the window with your fists. Most manufacturers install cars with detachable headrests to quickly install them in the shop. Their incidental use as a breakout tool is a lucky coincidence. While there still is air in the cabin, remove the headrest. Start hitting the window in the corners with the supporting prongs. With enough force, the blunt tip of the stem should shatter the glass. Make sure to close your eyes, because glass will be everywhere. The cleanup is the least of your concerns though. Use the rod to break down the remaining pieces in the frame to avoid cutting yourself. Hopefully, you can swim to safety.^[9]

1Only Turn Right

The Common Problem:

The one trick everybody wants to know is how to get the most miles per gallon out of their tank. If they could also save time that would be even better. Experts have weighted in. Their solution is cumbersome, but it works.

The Easy Solution:

This tip was professionally researched. UPS needed to figure out the best way to optimize fuel efficiency. They discovered that the best solution was to always turn right. Instead of waiting at traffic lights to cross over lanes, UPS drivers map out routes to always turn to the right. The method all but eliminates the drawn-out waits at the red light. UPS boasts that the policy has successfully conserved 10 million gallons of fuel each year. This technique lowers the risk of a head on collision and saves on fuel. Even if the detours lengthens the trip, the time saved from not idling offsets the winding route.^[10]

Thousands of adults entering the workforce every day have never known life without the Internet. But as computing power has increased exponentially while devices grow ever smaller, it’s humbling to remember that we are only a couple generations removed from what was, comparatively at least, the informational dark ages.

Here are 10 technologies that represent early attempts to give consumers the kind of unbridled access that we now take for granted.

10Phone-Based Services

Before the advent of personal computers, the only ubiquitous devices through which a two-way flow of information could be conducted was the telephone. Therefore, much of the information available at a glance from our smartphones today was first made conveniently available through phone-based services. For example, nearly every populated area in the US at one time had a number one could call for the current time and temperature, many of which had operated since near the turn of the century, and some of which are still in use today.

Phone-based services had begun to fill other needs by the mid-20th century, such as multi-user “party lines” (subscription open circuits that can be thought of as early social networks), and even a form of on-demand music was available if your local radio station had a request line.

By the ‘90s, the most popular service of this type was Moviefone, which does largely what Fandango does today (give showtimes and book tickets). Its phone service was discontinued in 2014, but it lives on—as an app.

9Video Dating

Dating websites and apps have flourished within the last 10 years or so, but the basic concept of convenient matchmaking using dating profiles far predates the modern Internet and can be easily traced to a phenomenon seen at the time as a fad: video dating.

The first such service, Great Expectations, opened its doors on Valentine’s Day 1976. Members paid an annual subscription fee and visited Member Centers to fill out their Member Profiles and record candid video of themselves discussing what they wanted in a date. Eventually, services popped up to include practically every niche, just like dating sites and apps today, and the industry as a whole generated billions in revenue throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s. It was, however, quickly killed by the advent of online matchmaking. Match.com, the first of these sites, debuted in 1995; Great Expectations, which had grown into a nationwide franchise, was shuttered permanently just a few years later.

8Pocket Video Games

When video games took the public by storm in the early 1970s, we immediately fell in love with them; so much so, in fact, that we wanted to put them in our pockets and take them with us. That was completely prohibited by the technology of the time. But this didn’t stop some enterprising companies from coming as close as they possibly could—which is to say, not very close—to giving gamers a portable arcade experience.

Mattel’s sports-based games tried to replicate action with red LED dots and dashes, while later efforts from companies like Tiger and Nintendo instead used LCD displays to deliver a semblance of animation. Among the most popular were Nintendo’s Game and Watch series, some of which featured dual or wide screens, and offered (very loose) adaptations of popular arcade titles like Donkey Kong.

7Bulletin Board Systems

When dial-up modems first started seeing widespread commercial use in the mid-1980s, the Internet as we know it did not yet exist. Rather, there was a giant, unconnected network of what may be thought of as early websites—Bulletin Board Systems or BBSs. Users dialed in to post messages for other users (as only one user could typically connect at a time), exchange files, and even find illegal software downloads.

Since long-distance phone service was still costly at the time, boards mostly proliferated locally. By the early 1990s, when advancing technology was allowing for early chat and gaming functions on local Bulletin Boards, the Internet was just beginning to make its way into the American consciousness. While its advent all but wiped out what had started to become a thriving culture, as with almost anything tech-related, a few holdouts still exist. Over 300 BBSs still operate today, mostly in the United States.

6Cartrivision

The VCR became a staple of American homes beginning in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. Consumers benefited from a format war in which new innovations came, and prices remained low. But both formats were almost beaten squarely to the punch by the Cartrivision, the first home video recorder ever marketed in the United States. It was an incredibly ambitious device.

Marketed in 1972, Cartrivision came as one unit with a TV and was sold under several different brand names. It could record broadcast television on a timer on its plastic cartridges, up to an hour of video; it could also make monochrome home movies with a camera attachment. Cartridges of actual Hollywood films were also made available for rental through retailers. The cartridge design made it impossible to rewind without a special rewinder, ensuring each rental could only be watched once.

Unfortunately, poor video quality and an absurdly hefty price tag—about $9,000 in today’s money—made the device a spectacular flop. But one investor, in a 1973 Washington Post interview, unwittingly saw the future of home video: “This,” he said, “will put pornography back in the home where it belongs.”

5The Mikiphone

The Sony Walkman in the 1980s revolutionized the way people listen to music and paved the way for portable music players such as the iPod. But the quest for a portable listening device goes back a little bit further, with a portable gramophone player the size of a CD case appearing as early as 1924.

Called the Mikiphone, it promised “an orchestra in your pocket,” and it delivered. The compact device required a little assembly, and instead of a speaker used a “resonator” for amplification. It also required a hand crank to operate, common for record players of the time. Nevertheless, producing from one’s pocket a device capable of playing a full-size record in 1924 seems likely to have been a formidable display of tech wizardry.

4The Zoopraxiscope

Eadweard Muybridge, a famous British landscape photographer living in America, was commissioned in 1877 to solve an old riddle through photography. The question was whether all four of a horse’s hooves leave the ground while it gallops, and to find the answer, Muybridge set up a series of cameras with trip wires to capture each phase of the horse’s movement.

The resulting slides were converted to a proprietary disc format and projected using the Zoopraxiscope, a circular projector of Muybridge’s own invention that produced the world’s first moving pictures. More specifically, Muybridge went on to produce nearly 100 loops of both human and animal subjects in motion that resemble nothing so much as GIFs. 71 of these discs still survive at the Kingston Museum—along with the Zoopraxiscope, the only one ever built. And yes: All four hooves leave the ground, and Muybridge’s first proto-GIF proved it.

3The Iter Auto

It seems difficult to believe that early personal navigation systems could predate GPS or even satellites, but the first attempt at a commercial navigation device was made when cars were barely past the age of the hand crank in 1932. Produced by an Italian company, the Iter Auto was a console connected to the car’s speedometer and used interchangeable, scrolling maps to guide users to their destinations.

It was the first device to show a user’s position in real time, and it worked—so long as one didn’t make a wrong turn. Of course, the user also had to start from a predetermined point, and many trips were long enough to require multiple scrolls to complete the trip, so the user would have to pull over and change out the scroll for the next one in the sequence every so often. While the device didn’t exactly catch on commercially, it was an ambitious first crack at a technology that wouldn’t begin to reach fruition for over 60 years.

2The Hogg Selfie Stick

While not exactly a technical marvel, selfie sticks have begun selling like hotcakes in recent years. Time Magazine even cited them as one of the greatest inventions of 2014—which seemed a bit strange to Alan Cleaver, as a grainy black and white photo in a family album, taken with a selfie stick, had been a family favorite for generations.

Cleaver’s grandfather, Arnold Hogg, took the above photo in 1926 using a device of his own invention. As you can see, it looks pretty much exactly like a modern selfie stick. Arnold’s sense of humor is evident in his expression in the photo, and he remained fond of breaking out his device until his death in 1972. While Mr. Cleaver is not a fan of modern selfie sticks—“We’ve become so insular we haven’t even got a friend to take a photo for us now,” he says—he admits that it would have been nice if his grandfather had filed for a patent.

1The Telharmonium

Finally, while music streaming services are all the rage today, it may be surprising to know that the first service to stream music to phones predates smartphones, the Internet, and even modern telephone service. All the way back in the early 1900s, those who had telephones could call the operator and ask to connect to the Telharmonium. The gigantic contraption looked every bit as Seussian as its name and could pump electronic music to the user’s telephone receiver.

The Telharmonium, 200 tons of machinery taking up an entire floor of a building, was an enormous maze of relays, alternators, transformers and switchboards connected to two special keyboards. Musicians would play 24 hours a day, which would be converted into electrical signals by the Telharmonium, generating eerie, tinkling electronic tunes. A special paper funnel attached to the telephone receiver amplified the sound, as amplifiers had not been invented yet.

A 1906 New York Times article spoke of the invention in glowing terms, inspiring Mark Twain to pay a visit. Twain was positively smitten with the device, telling the Times, “Every time I see or hear a new wonder like this I have to postpone my death right off . . . I couldn’t possibly leave the world until I have heard this again and again.”

Caves aren’t just for bats and ancient bones anymore. Although many caves have incredible natural beauty and rich histories, some also have cool things that you’d never expect to find there.

10Mountain Biking

Mega Cavern Bike Park in Louisville, Kentucky, is home to the world’s first underground mountain biking course—and the largest indoor bike park ever built—with something for bikers at all levels. Even expert bikers will be able to maneuver through advanced trails and jumps in caverns with 30-meter-high (90 ft) ceilings. “Think about riding or skiing down a mountain,” says co-owner Jim Lowry, describing the trails. “You don’t go speeding straight down, you go back and forth, over bumps and smooth sections. You are moving fast at some points and more slowly at others.”

Designed by Joe Prisel, a bike park creator for the ESPN X Games, Mega Cavern Bike Park is built in a modular fashion. That way, a lot of the trails can be modified during the year to create new challenges for riders. With a consistent temperature of 16 degrees Celsius (60 °F) underground, bikers no longer have to worry about weather that makes riding dangerous outdoors. There will be a riding school, too.

The 92-acre cavern also sports a business park and entertainment attractions like the Lights Under Louisville, a drive-through display of over two million Christmas lights. The cavern runs under the Louisville Zoo and some commercial buildings. But the way the texture of the high limestone walls and dirt varies, it feels like you’re outside instead of enclosed beneath the ground.

There’s so much solid limestone above the ceilings that the cavern was considered safe enough to use as a fallout shelter for up to 50,000 people during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Initially excavated in the 1930s, this man-made cavern, the largest in Kentucky, was mined as a limestone quarry for over 40 years. Under new ownership in 1989, the cavern eventually housed a recycling center and over 11 acres of office buildings. It became a huge complex almost completely hidden within massive limestone cliffs.

9A Nightclub

A part of Hotel Las Cuevas in Trinidad, Cuba, Disco Ayala lets you experience a rave in a cave. With three bars and five dance floors, the club blasts disco-salsa music from a DJ booth while colored lights play off the stalactites on the walls. Although some of disco’s intense heat is released through a big hole in the roof, the opening really serves to prevent the sound waves from causing a cave-in. Up to 5,000 people can fit inside. The disco also features live acts that include acrobatics, glass-eating, fire-walking, and snakes.

Legend has it that the cave was once home to a notorious Cuban serial killer, psychopath Carlos “Coco” Ayala, who kidnapped children and killed them in the cave. When Cuban children misbehave, their mothers often warn them: “Be good or Carlos Ayala will come looking!” Supposedly, Carlos deserted during the 19th-century Cuban War of Independence and hid for safety in the cave. “I always heard that this man [abducted] children, leading [them] to a cave to rape and kill them as part of a ritual to the saints,” recalled an old resident of Trinidad as quoted by Cuban newspaper Escambray. “His misdeeds ended when the people captured and beheaded him.” Exactly how much truth exists in the legend is unknown. But there is historical evidence to confirm that Ayala did kill several people in the cave in the late 1800s.

Strangely, the owners of the nightclub kept the Ayala name. However, the disco was constructed for entertainment only, not to remember the evil deeds of a murderer.

8A Church

Although we don’t know its date of origin, the spacious Spassky Cave Church is located in Kostomarovo, a Russian village in the Voronezh region of the country. It’s the larger of two churches in the ancient cave monastery called the Svyato–Spassky Convent. Although the Spassky Church is carved into a chalky cliff, it’s big enough to accommodate 2,000 people. There’s even a large “Cave of Repentance” for sinners to make their confessions. Much of the surrounding area is named after the Holy Land, including a Calvary, a Gethsemane Garden, a hill of Golgotha, and a Mount Tabor.

Before the rise of Christianity in Russia, monks hid in ascetic cave cells in the region to avoid religious persecution until the first monastery was constructed in the 12th century. One of the purposes of the monastery was to shield parishioners from enemy attack, even if the siege continued for a long time. Monks and hermits lived in small cells cut into the shrine walls. They were completely isolated from the outside world except for a tiny window carved out of the rock.

As the communists swept into power, the monks were executed, and the Svyato-Spassky Convent was closed like so many other places of worship in the country. However, the caves once again provided refuge, this time for the country’s soldiers, when the Soviets fought the Nazis in World War II (also called the “Great Patriotic War” in the Soviet Union). Although the churches were officially reopened in 1943, Nikita Khrushchev directed local officials to close them again in the early 1960s. They flooded the cave and burned the exterior of the buildings.

In 1993, after the fall of communism, the church, convent, and caves were rebuilt. Even today, some Russians make a pilgrimage to the church every year.

7A Whole New Ecosystem

The Er Wang Dong cave in the Chongquig province of China is so big and isolated that it has a unique ecosystem, including its own weather. Scientists didn’t venture far enough into the cave to discover its secrets until 2012. Partly, that’s because they needed a lot of specialized equipment to lower themselves through the opening at the top of the cave, which requires a descent of more than 250 meters (820 ft). When the explorers got inside, they also found some openings to the outside around the floor of the cave. However, the scientists were less astounded by the almost 13-acre size of the cave than by the clouds that obscured their view of the ceiling in what is known as Cloud Ladder Hall.

Clouds get in, but they can’t get back out. Although the cave had been mined for nitrate near its entrances, there was lush vegetation, including trees, in the interior chambers. But there was also danger from rushing rivers that can carry you over one of the interior waterfalls to your death.

Explorer Robbie Shone explains that we really know very little about the mysteries of our planet’s caves. “More people have been to the Moon than to some of these caves,” he says. “Each time we go into these caves and bring photographs or video back to the surface, it’s all new stuff we’ve never seen before.”

6Modern Cavemen And Cavewomen

Over 30 million people in China still live in caves, including an entire community in Shaanxi province. There, the porous soil of the loess plateau makes it easy to dig a cave home, called a yaodong, out of the mountainside. These no-frill, one-room dwellings substitute rice paper or a quilt for a front door. If you have the money, it’s possible to buy more rooms, as well as electricity, running water, and a yard. These caves conserve energy and provide residents with more land to farm.

Some of the caves are in high demand from people looking to buy or rent. But apparently, nobody wants to leave. Most cave dwellers have lived there all their lives. Even some of the residents who’ve moved on for various reasons dream of returning to their caves. “It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter,” says forty-something Ren Shouhua. “It’s quiet and safe. When I get old, I’d like to go back to my roots.”

Historically, that wasn’t always safe, though. On January 23, 1556, the Shaanxi magnitude 8 earthquake struck, and it was the deadliest one ever recorded. The quake killed 830,000 people, and many lost their lives when their yaodong collapsed on them.

Nevertheless, the caves have provided refuge for the Chinese during important moments in history. Mao Zedong once retreated to caves in the north of Shaanxi province when the Long March ended in the 1930s. American journalist Edgar Snow wrote about a Red Army university located in bombproof caves. During the Cultural Revolution, even Chinese President Xi Jinping spent seven years living in exile in a Shaanxi province cave.

However, not all modern caves are inexpensive or spartan. The deluxe Cave House in Bisbee, Arizona, was listed for sale for over $1 million dollars in 2012 when one of the owners died. It’s even possible to find a cave home on eBay as Curt Sleeper did in 2003 in Festus, Missouri. But he soon learned it’s difficult to get a bank to finance the purchase of a cave. The Sleepers moved in, but they fell on hard times and had to put the house up for auction.

5Medical Treatment Centers

When two middle-aged Frenchwomen became convinced that electromagnetic radiation from the modern world was making them sick, they took up residence in a cave. “I’ve been treated like a crazy woman,” said one of the pair, Bernadette Touloumond. “I’ve lost a lot of friends, and my family find [sic] it hard to understand.” However, many people trek to medical treatment centers set up in caves throughout the world to supposedly help them with their ailments. We’ve already talked about the Gastein Healing Cave in Austria that contains the world’s biggest pain management center.

Especially popular these days are salt caves, some natural and some man-made, designed to treat respiratory ailments like asthma and skin conditions like eczema. The man-made caves are often just indoor rooms that coat their ceilings and walls with salt, although some blow particles of cave salt into the air with a generator. In these halotherapy chambers, you simply relax in a chair and breathe the salt air. However, doctors caution that conditions such as asthma may be worsened by these treatments.

A German named Dr. Schutz is credited with dreaming up the notion of a salt cure gallery in Berchtesgaden, Germany, after noticing how the air around a Polish salt mine healed wounds faster during World War II. In Eastern Europe, salt caves are considered by many to be therapeutic. However, there are few studies on salt rooms published in the English language to either confirm or deny these claims.

4A Controversial Movie Set

Devetashka Cave is a huge cave close to the village of Devetaki in Bulgaria. In the 1950s, the cave was used as a military warehouse for oil tank storage. Devetashka was also inhabited by humans in ancient times, but the landmark is only home to a protected bat population, including some endangered species.

In 2011, the cave became most well known for a controversy over a movie set. The producers for The Expendables 2 (starring Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis) shot an action scene where Stallone crash-landed a plane into the cave to take out Jean Claude Van Damme’s hideout. Environmentalists complained that the movie shoot reduced the bat population by about 75 percent. “The shooting harms the bat habitat—with the placement of props, the cutting down of vegetation, as well as disturbance by the presence of large numbers of people and the noise they make,” said Bulgarian zoologist Nikolay Simov from the Center for Bat Studies and Protection. Supposedly, all the noise caused the bats to come out of hibernation too early, to the detriment of their health.

Simov also stated that local authorities had no legal right to issue a permit for filming at the cave because regulations allow only scientific research and tourism there. After an investigation, however, the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Waters found that most of the bats were hibernating at the proper time and the number of dead bats wasn’t excessive.

3Astronomical Knowledge & A Fertility Light Show

A cave on Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, has revealed that its aboriginal inhabitants had an impressive knowledge of astronomy. It appears that the cave was originally used as a temple. But the way that equinoxes and solstices are marked inside the cave suggests an advanced knowledge of astronomy.

The temple also creates a unique fertility light show throughout the year. “It’s like a projector of images from a vanished culture,” says archaeologist Julio Cuenca. That culture is the aboriginal Guanches, who are believed to have come to the Canary Islands about 3,000 years ago. After Spain conquered them in the 1400s, their culture disappeared.

But apparently, their fertility myths are illuminated in the cave, revealing images that change according to the season. For the six months from March to September, sunlight shining onto the cave walls produces phallic images on top of engravings of female pubic areas. Over time, as fall approaches, these images transform into a pregnant woman and ultimately a seed.

2An Amusement Park

While technically not a cave, the Wieliczka Salt Mine outside of Krakow, Poland, doesn’t qualify as a mine anymore, either. No salt has been mined there for over a decade. Approximately 300 kilometers (186 mi) long, it’s a huge complex nine levels deep with chapels and important sculptures of religious and historical figures. From the 13th century on, generations of mostly Catholic miners built incredible structures beneath the ground, including a huge cathedral. Wieliczka even has an underground lake and chandeliers made of salt. Like the salt caves already mentioned, Wieliczka has a spa for people with respiratory difficulties. The complex became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.

Thrill seekers congregate in its depths 300 meters (1,000 ft) underground to bungee jump, ride hot-air balloons, and even windsurf across the salty underground lake (although they need a giant fan to provide the wind). Wieliczka also has its own underground brass band to provide music during the festivities.

1Hidden Treasure

In March 2015, a 21-year-old member of the Israeli Caving Club discovered buried treasure in an undisclosed cave in northern Israel. Authorities don’t want to identify the location of the ancient stalactite cave for fear that poachers will rob it of other hidden treasures.

In the cave with his father and a friend, Hen Zakai was crawling along a particularly narrow area when he spotted something shining in the darkness of a nook. It was two silver coins minted during the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered Israel in the late fourth century BC. Each coin showed an image of Alexander the Great on one side and Zeus on the other. Hen also discovered a cloth pouch with silver jewelry nearby, with some earrings that were incredibly well preserved along with bracelets and rings.

“The valuables might have been hidden in the cave by local residents who fled there during the period of governmental unrest stemming from the death of Alexander, a time when the Wars of the Diadochi broke out in Israel between Alexander’s heirs following his death,” said Dr. Eitan Klein of the Antiquities Authority. “Presumably, the cache was hidden in the hope of better days, but today we know that whoever buried the treasure never returned to collect it.”

Further exploration of the cave revealed ancient pottery hanging on stalagmites. Some of the pottery had fused with the limestone and couldn’t be removed. The newly discovered artifacts date from the Hellenistic period about 2,300 years ago all the way back to the Chalcolithic period about 6,000 years ago.

The human brain is the biggest reason behind our utter dominance on Earth. We may not be able to fly, have the best claws, or run particularly fast, but thanks to the capability of our brains, we have managed to climb our way to the top of the evolutionary hierarchy. Despite all of that, though, the brain still has its limitations. There are many things we can’t do because of those limitations, and such inabilities often show up at the worst times.

Thankfully for us all, scientists are consistently working on coming up with hacks to overcome our brains’ limits, as there is still a lot we don’t understand about the most important part of the body. Here are ten ways you can hack your brain to your advantage, according to science.

10 Be More Attractive By Believing You Smell Good

It comes as a surprise to no one that smelling good makes you more attractive to the opposite sex, as we instinctively associate smell with hygiene. It’s a more understated cue of attractiveness than other, obvious ones, like looks or personality, but it nevertheless plays an equally important role in deciding the outcome of a date. We’re not just talking about how you smell, but also how you think you smell.

According to a study, merely believing that you smell good increases your chances of getting with the ladies. (The study was only done with male subjects.) Researchers gave scented spray to one half of a group of equivalently attractive participants and a generic, odorless spray to the other half and took videos. They then showed the videos to a group of women, asking them to rate the men on attractiveness. Surprisingly, the women rated the men with the scented spray to be more attractive, even if they had no way of knowing how the men smelled just from video clips.^[1]

It suggests that self-perception doesn’t just influence the level of your confidence but also affects how other people perceive you.

9 Use Gestures To Prepare For A Test

Students use a variety of techniques to help themselves retain information before an upcoming test, from the traditional writing things down to the more new-age yoga before a studying session. As all of us know, though, most of those techniques are hit-or-miss, as no one has been able to perfectly figure out the best way to guarantee memory retention. While we’re not claiming to have solved pre-test preparation, there’s one scientifically proven method you can use that definitely works: using gestures while studying.^[2]

Studies have found that when you use gestures to explain the information to yourself, the brain retains it far more effectively than, say, speaking it out aloud or even writing it down. In fact, in one study, researchers found that only speaking while learning a concept had no effect on information retention at all.

8 Use The Sun To Hallucinate

While we’d like to reiterate our stance against abusing drugs for recreation, we have to admit that hallucinations are awesome. There are a few things as fun as making the brain see things that aren’t there, but because illicit drugs seem to be the only way to do it, many people never get to experience it. If you’re one of them and would like to know how it feels without being on the wrong side of the law, there’s some good news. As one physiologist from the 19th century found out, all you need to hallucinate without drugs is the Sun.

Just close your eyes and point them toward the sun. Then wave your hand back and forth across the face while keeping one eye covered. Pretty soon, you’ll start seeing shapes, and while the exact figures vary according to person, you can expect hallucinations like spirals, hexagons, or squares.^[3]

Another way you can legally hallucinate is by exploiting something called the Ganzfeld effect, wherein the brain fills in visual information of its own after long periods of sensory deprivation. Just put a piece of white paper over your eyes, lie down under bright white light, and use noise-canceling headphones to block out any sound for 20 minutes. When you get up, you’d be treated to some good old visuals (as they presumably call them in the world of illegal drugs).

7 Trick Your Brain Into Thinking A Rubber Arm Is Real

We’ve all heard of the phantom limb, wherein people who’ve had limbs amputated can still feel the presence of their missing appendage, to the extent that they can feel pain and other sensations in it. While still mind-blowing, it has been extensively studied and talked about. What’s surprising, however, is that you can do something similar with your existing limbs, as well.

In an experiment, researchers asked volunteers to put both their arms on the table, with their right hand inside a box. They then placed a rubber arm on the box and aligned it with the participants’ right shoulders in the same position as their real arms, with just the tips of fingers visible. When the scientists stroked both the fake and real hands for a minute or two, they were surprised to find that eventually, the volunteers started perceiving the fake hand as the real one.^[4]

Scientists don’t quite understand how it works, though they’re sure that it has something to do with how the brain gives priority to visual cues over anything else while determining the ownership of its parts. Now you definitely can’t use this one to, say, get out of tricky situations, but it makes for a freaky diversion at otherwise dull parties.

6 Stop Yourself From Choking By Singing

How many times has it happened that you’re called to speak in front of a group, and before you can say anything, the words seem to get stuck in your throat? It’s not just psychological, either; for many people, that choking is quite real. And seeing how public speaking is one of the biggest fears around, it happens to more people than you’d think. If only there was a way to counter it.

Fortunately for us all, science has figured out a way to effectively halt choking in high-stress situations. All you need to do is sing a song to yourself, as it distracts the brain and helps alleviate the feeling of panic you get in those moments.^[5] In case singing is not a socially acceptable option, like during a meeting, you can also try other things like counting backward from any number or simply focusing other things.

5 Listen To Classical Music To Improve Learning

Music affects all of us in different ways that we can’t quite put into words. Essentially, though, it’s an escape from the sounds of the real world and can get us through some difficult times. It’s also related to productivity, as anyone who has ever breezed through a deadline with their earphones plugged in can tell you. However, because everyone’s brain is different, and music appeals in a different way to everyone, we don’t have a unified theory on how it relates to productivity.

While it will be some time before we can perfectly figure that out, thanks to one study, we know of one type of music that increases creativity and learning for everyone, regardless of their preference: classical music.

In the study, 249 students were observed during a lecture, albeit in two groups. One had classical music playing in the background during the lecture; the other did not. When they tested them in a multiple-choice exam immediately afterward, they were surprised to find out that the students who learned with classical music performed much better.^[6]

4 Aroma Of Rosemary Improves Mental Ability

The benefits of essential oils on the brain are oft-repeated but largely unproven. We’re not denying their effectiveness in making you feel good, which can automatically have a positive effect on your brain. In terms of tangible benefits, though, none of the essential oils are scientifically proven to do anything. Well, except for rosemary.

Presumably in a bid to decisively prove the essential oils crowd wrong, researchers put a bunch of people in a room filled with rosemary aroma and asked them to do a variety of subtraction and visual-information-processing tests. To their surprise, and possibly dismay, there was a definite improvement in the participants’ performance as the scientists increased the dosage of the aroma.^[7]

They’re not quite sure why that is, but it suggests that rosemary has a positive impact on the brain’s cognitive abilities, so stock up on it before your next test.

3 Chew Gum To Reduce Anxiety And Depression

Apart from the approximately six seconds that the flavor lasts, chewing gum doesn’t seem to have any benefits at all. Despite it not clearly falling into any category of things—like food or activities—many people love to chew gum, and it remains a largely successful industry. What gives?

According to science, there are some clear benefits to chewing gum, and it is one of the few proven ways you can force your brain to behave that we know of. In a study, they found that chewing gum significantly lowers anxiety levels. The effects were most pronounced after two weeks of regular gum-chewing. That probably explains why that guy who was always chewing gum in high school was so “chill,” though it doesn’t stop there. Gum chewers also fare better at battling depression and fatigue than others.^[8]

2 Study In Spaced Intervals To Retain More Information

Students have been trying to find the perfect way to study in order to fare better at exams since time immemorial, albeit without much success. Even scientists aren’t exactly sure about how memories are formed in the brain, and figuring it out has been a longstanding pursuit in the neuroscience world.

One oft-repeated technique that is thought to work before tests is the brute force method: Just continuously read the subject matter, and you’re bound to remember it sooner or later. We believe it because everyone says it works, though according to some research, it actually makes you remember less information than if you’d studied in intervals.

Known as spaced repetition, this method requires you to take breaks in the learning process instead of repeatedly trying to cram information in. Studies prove that the latter is actually detrimental to retaining information, as the brain needs time to make the connections required to form a lasting memory.^[9]

1 Smiling Can Trick Your Brain Into Thinking You’re Happy

People smile because they’re happy, as most of us must have figured out by now. It’s a purely social feature of the body, and its only purpose is to let other people know that you’re having a good time, even if it’s fake.

What most people may not know, however, is that smiling isn’t just a response to being happy; it works the other way around, too. As many studies have found, just the act of smiling releases a bunch of feel-good chemicals—like dopamine and serotonin—in your brain. It also reduces stress and anxiety in high-pressure situations, lowers blood pressure, and may even help you live longer.

More interestingly, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like smiling at all; the mere act of smiling causes the brain to do all of those things, regardless of any other factors.^[10]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

In the field of motion picture special effects, there are few, if any, names as big as Douglas Trumbull. His groundbreaking work on seminal films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Blade Runner earned him a spot in the pantheon of premier visual effects artists. Trumbull passed away in February 2022 at the age of 79.

While fans everywhere mourn the loss, it’s a good time to look back on the fascinating life of this unique visual artist. Here are 10 cool facts about the life of filmmaker and special effects artist extraordinaire Douglas Trumbull.

Related: 10 Movie Graphics That Looked Cool But Are Now Laughable

10 It Runs in the Family

Douglas Trumbull was born on April 8, 1942, in Los Angeles, California. Growing up near Hollywood surely gave him a leg up for eventually breaking into the industry—as did a family connection. Douglas’s father, Don Trumbull, was an aerospace engineer who also happened to work on the special effects for Star Wars (1977) and one of Hollywood’s earliest hits known for its visual effects: The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Although the senior Trumbull didn’t have another film credit until after Douglas became successful in the industry, he did later work with his son on films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It’s clear that the talents that make one a great visual artist run in the Trumbull family. ^[1]

9 Childhood Electronics and Building

While growing up in California, Trumbull was fascinated with how mechanical and electronic devices work. He even built his own crystal set radios. A crystal set radio is a small device that can not only pick up audio from radio signals but also power itself from the received signals.

This kind of aptitude with mechanics and electricity led him to want to pursue a career in architecture. However, his unique talents would lead him in a direction that would allow him to incorporate his other interests of outer space and science fiction films.^[2]

8 Films for NASA and the Air Force

Before he could pursue architecture, Trumbull’s illustrations of planets and spaceships caught the attention of Graphic Films, a small animation and graphic arts studio. Graphic Films was a contractor for the U.S. government, specifically NASA and the U.S. Air Force.

While employed there, Trumbull would work on documentaries and conceptual films for those agencies. Some of the films were even shot in Cinerama, a very widescreen process requiring three separate projectors to present back on a curved, wraparound movie screen. A precursor to today’s IMAX, Cinerama proved to be an exceptionally good fit for the needs of Graphic Films and NASA in explaining the agency’s future plans for space travel.^[3]

7 Ticket to the 1964 World’s Fair

One of the Cinerama productions Trumbull worked on for Graphic Films ended up playing at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. To the Moon and Beyond played at the Transportation and Travel Pavilion at the fair. The immersive Cinerama presentation promised audiences a realistic idea of space travel, a full five years before NASA put astronauts on the moon.

The film’s poster told audiences to be prepared to “be propelled on the most fantastic, incredible voyage through billions of miles of space…from its utmost outer reaches…back to the Earth itself, and into the center of the minutest atom. All through the magic of Cinerama!”^[4]

6 A Call to Kubrick

Two important visitors to the 1964 World’s Fair had a keen interest in To the Moon and Beyond. Director Stanley Kubrick and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke were beginning pre-production work on what would become the landmark 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Impressed by the realism of To the Moon and Beyond, Kubrick hired Graphic Films as advisors and storyboard artists for his new film project.

Once Kubrick ended his relationship with Graphic Films, Trumbull took a leap of faith and cold-called Kubrick to share his ideas for how Kubrick could realize his vision. This phone call proved to be the pivotal moment in Trumbull’s career, as Kubrick then contacted Trumbull’s boss at Graphic Films and arranged for Trumbull to come to England to work on the film.^[5]

5 A Stargate Is Born

While working on 2001, the production team would eventually figure out how to turn the words on the script into the elaborate special effects the film became legendary for. The famous “Stargate” sequence, when astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) first makes contact with alien life, was not terribly well defined when it came time to shoot it.

Trumbull recalled that the team had a vague idea about one of Jupiter’s moons that had a tunnel through which another part of the universe could be seen. However, there was no clear plan on how to take the idea from concept to reality. He noted, “It wasn’t my job to create a solution, but I was watching what others were doing, and you could see it just wasn’t working.” After finding inspiration from some “avant-garde animation films he had seen,” Trumbull developed a machine he called a “slit-scan.” The machine “moved colorful artwork behind slits while the camera moved away from the slit.” This is the scene that we see in the film today. Kubrick decided the effects worked the film and told Trumbull to “keep shooting, keep shooting.”^[6]

4 The Birth of Familiar Droids

Trumbull parlayed his success from 2001 into more Hollywood special effects jobs and, just a few years later, a chance to direct his own film, Silent Running. The story follows a botanist (Bruce Dern) in the future who has been tasked with keeping plants and animals alive until Earth is safe to inhabit again. He does this with the help of some small robots (designed by Trumbull, naturally). Viewers who have checked out Silent Running only after seeing Star Wars can’t help but notice that the robots in Silent Running wouldn’t feel out of place as droids in the Star Wars universe.

Norman Reynolds, the art director for the first Star Wars film from 1977, acknowledges this by saying, “I remember watching Silent Running for the robots.” Some of the similarities between the Silent Running robots and droids that have been noted include retractable arms, the ability to interact with computers, and built-in tools. But perhaps the biggest similarity is the beeps and whistles that the robots in both films use to communicate.^[7]

3 Directing the Shots

We mentioned before how, after coming up with how to shoot the 2001 Stargate sequence, he shot much of it himself at the urging of Kubrick. This experience, along with becoming a director in his own right, led other directors who hired Trumbull to allow him to shoot his special effects sequences.

Some of his most notable work was in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. According to the Hollywood Reporter, director Robert Wise had Trumbull shoot the docking sequence aboard the Enterprise and Spock’s spacewalk. It’s probably no coincidence that these are two of the most highly regarded scenes in this Star Trek classic.^[8]

2 A Universal Back to the Future

When Universal Studios wanted to create a Back to the Future ride, they contracted with a company called Berkshire Ridefilm. This is one of several companies that Trumbull started and named after the Berkshire hills area of Massachusetts where he lived. Given his credentials and experience with To the Moon and Beyond and the sense of movement in the 2001 Stargate sequence, he was the ideal candidate to help Universal bring the ride to life. He directed the 4-minute film that’s a part of the ride.

Trumbull took on the job with his characteristic zeal and inventiveness, and he can be seen on YouTube talking about how he conveyed the sense of motion that is so key to the ride to the short film.^[9]

1 Saving the Planet

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, started within days of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. By the time the leak was under control, an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf.

Ever the inventor, Trumbull took to social media with a solution concept that garnered a lot of attention at the time as a common-sense way to clean up the Gulf waters. His concept and pitch can still be seen on YouTube. In the end, no governments or BP reached out to Trumbull to follow up on the idea, but one does have to wonder if his ideas were incorporated into cleanup efforts.^[10]

There’s something about an underground tunnel that I personally love. It’s dark, spooky, full of spiders and low-hanging pipes—and sometimes, there are dead people. It’s romantic and educational! (I was not the average thrill-seeker as a child, okay?)

When I think of crypts, catacombs, and underground cities, I jump to antiquity first. There are the necropolis under the Vatican Basilica and the burial crypts of ancient Egypt. Don’t forget the famous Catacombs in Paris and Palermo. By definition, a crypt is a “chamber, such as a vault, wholly or partly underground especially: a vault under the main floor of a church.” It makes sense we would associate crypts and underground cities of bones with our European counterparts and ancient ancestors. It’s not something we think could exist under our feet in cities in the U.S. like Boston, New York, or even Seattle.

So here’s a look at some of the American crypts and subterranean cities you can visit (and I recommend it) if you’re into winding tunnels, mystery, history, and sometimes just centuries-old dead guys. No judgment here.

Related: 10 Bone-Chilling Facts About the Catacombs of Paris

10 Seattle, WA

Believe it or not, Seattle, Washington, has an entire secret underground city that burned down in a large fire in 1889. The new city was simply rebuilt on top of the old ruins, which are still open to tours today. Between 1890 and 1907, the old ground floor continued to be used. Merchants either carried on business on the bottom floors that had managed to survive the fire or the new above-ground layer. Pedestrians then used the now-underground levels with sidewalks lit by the pavement lights above.

As you can imagine, the Underground level led to the seedier businesses. In 1907, the city condemned the Underground out of fear of the bubonic plague that was spreading along the West Coast at the time. Underground Seattle became abandoned and left to deteriorate and for use as storage. All the new abandoned space under the city became tempting accommodations for vagrants, illegal gambling, prostitution, opium dens, and speakeasies.

Today, you can visit the Seattle Underground on one of many tours. There are still artifacts and relics down there from decades past. It’s creepy and supposedly haunted, as most underground cities reportedly are.^[1]

9 New York, NY

If a more somber tour of a crypt is your thing, I would recommend popping over to New York City. Right off Mulberry Street, you’ll find St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, with the only active Roman Catholic cemetery in Manhattan outside its doors. Some of the inhabitants are over 200 years old. The cathedral itself was the largest in the United States when it was completed in 1815, and it was the seat of the first Bishop of the Diocese of New York. Much of the wooden cathedral interior burned to the ground in 1866 in a fire set off by a kitchen stove.

Step inside today and walk down into the basement, however, and you can take a “candlelight” (It’s an LED flashlight, you know, because of the fire) tour of the crypt beneath the church. You won’t see any visible bones, but you will see lined hallways with ornate vaults and notable inhabitants. There’s Countess Annie Leary, the Delmonico family, and “Honest John” Kelly, to name a few. Oh, and upstairs, you’ll see where Francis Ford Coppola filmed the baptism scene in The Godfather.^[2]

8 Indianapolis, IN

Indiana is not a place where you’d think an underground catacomb tunnel network would exist, but it does. And it so happens that it’s very creepy to behold if you’re by yourself. Trust me on this one.

In 1886, the city of Indianapolis constructed two public buildings on Market Street designed by architect Dietrich Bohlen. These buildings were: City Market and Tomlinson Hall. City Market remains a thriving and beloved part of the downtown community of Indianapolis. Tomlinson Hall, however, disappeared from the cityscape in January 1958 when a fire ravaged the area. The city took down the remains later that year.

Today only its iconic arch and basement, known as the Catacombs, mark this once vibrant space. You can tour the catacombs as well! According to the city, the Catacombs qualify as both a ruin and a redevelopment opportunity, and they welcome visitors to explore the city’s past, present, and future. They have gone on record to say that Indianapolis’s Catacombs don’t contain bones or crypts (that they know of) but rather scores of brick barrel-vaulted arches. Nonetheless, it’s a cool space to visit if you get the chance. If you do find bones, high tail it out of there.^[3]

7 Atlanta, GA

Let’s talk about The Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe University. You’ve probably never heard about it unless you were really into the Guinness Book of World Records in the early ’90s or lived in Atlanta at some point. So, for background, I grew up in Atlanta and once went on a field trip to Oglethorpe University, where I saw The Crypt of Civilization. As a 10-year-old kid, I was intrigued and invested in opening this crypt and pretty much have been ever since.

There are no bodies (we think) inside this crypt. They also claim there are no valuables, gold, or jewelry inside this crypt. So, what is it? Very few facts exist about The Crypt itself. According to the University, “The Crypt of Civilization at Oglethorpe is the oldest millennial time capsule in conception and the largest in the world. In 1936, detailed plans were executed to build an extraordinary time capsule—one designed to store records for over 6,000 years, done on what could perhaps be described as an epic scale never before conceived. The visionary of this improbable quest was Oglethorpe University president Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, who has been called ‘the father of the modern time capsule.’” Jacobs was convinced that his generation could be the first to perform what he later called “our archaeological duty.” This was an obligation to provide for future historians “a thorough and accurate record, scientifically selected and preserved, of life in the twentieth century.” Some more facts to include:

• The Crypt of Civilization was sealed on May 28, 1940
• It is not to be opened until May 28, 8113
• No, you can not go inside; but you can visit the sealed stainless steel door

A lot has changed in the world since 1940. Oglethorpe has access to a lot of human archaeological archives. What’s in this crypt? Your guess is as good as mine. We’ll have to wait until National Treasure 3 or the end of the world to find this one out. I recommend going to look at the door if you’re in town. It’s as ominous and mysterious as you’d think.^[4]

6 Waterbury, CT

This is the only catacomb I’m truly scared of. Holy Land, USA is a religious “theme park” in Waterbury, CT, and nothing really says fun for the family like getting tetanus or succumbing to a deteriorating cave-in.

The park was originally opened in 1955 by John Baptist Greco, a totally normal lawyer, but it closed to the public in 1984 and was subsequently vandalized. It was also the site of the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 2010. It was subsequently purchased by a local non-profit and reopened on September 14, 2014, with an inaugural Mass and access to ruins of the grounds. So, what’s the story about the catacombs here?

At the height of the park’s popularity, there was once an attraction called “Catacombs: A History of the Church.” But it now serves as a stark warning of the deterioration of the space. According to a local review: “Any foray into these ancient burial chambers would likely end with a slip down a hidden staircase with your forehead impaled on a plank of rusty nails.” Nope.

Originally, it ran about 200 feet along the old parking lot in a series of corridors. Viewed from the parking lot, it appears to be underground but is actually all above the surface. On the far end, a small entrance contains a sign: “The Pictorial Life of Christ—From the Cradle to the Cross.” Another crudely hand-lettered sign lists every pope up to 1978. The area is open to the public during daylight hours. I would not recommend tempting your fate and going after hours. There are plans to reopen the park in its former glory. ^[5]

5 Cincinnati, OH

Cincinnati has a lot of old European architecture engrained into the heart of the city, from the restaurants to apartments and even down to where it buries its dead. It’s not often that a group of families comes together to request their long-dead relatives remain buried together. But that’s exactly what happened at Over-the-Rhine’s St. Francis Seraph Church. The original church was called Christ Church and was built in April of 1819 by the first Catholics of Cincinnati. In March 1822, Edward Fenwick, first bishop of Cincinnati, took possession of Christ Church as his cathedral. Later that year, the new bishop had Christ Church moved to a location downtown.

The cemetery remained while the city grew up around it. In November 1858, the cornerstone was laid for the present St. Francis Seraph Church. The remaining bodies were entombed in a crypt, Poets’ Corner–style , below the altar of the new church, which was consecrated on December 18, 1859.

There they stayed for more than 100 years, inaccessible to everyone except the inhabitants of the friary, which remained cloistered until the 1970s. Now, thanks to the American Legacy Queen City Underground Tour, you can see the crypt in person.^[6]

4 Newark, NJ

In 1937, Father Mateo Amoros was working as the assistant pastor at St. Joseph’s Church in Newark, New Jersey. Father Amoros reportedly took a trip to Montreal that same year, saw some catacombs, and decided that his church should also have them. The problem? The state of New Jersey generally frowned upon opening a new burial chamber beneath the church and told him no. However, Father Amoros had a much grander (and, honestly, creepier) vision in mind for his catacomb.

Instead of human remains, he would have wax corpses of saints and martyrs. By doing this, he opened America’s first wax museum, and you can still visit this “crypt” today. You can see some of the greatest hits, including St. Tarsicio, a 12-year-old altar boy who was beaten to death for refusing to surrender his Eucharist. Also, St. Genaro, who was “thrown into a lighted oven” and “thrown in with wild beasts” for choosing Christianity over paganism. Nearby lies St. Ines, “obedient girl and role model,” who refused to marry a Roman—she said she was already married to God. She then escaped vengeful murder because she was a virgin. So she was dragged to a brothel, deflowered, and then vengefully murdered.^[7]

By the way, this catacomb was also listed on a site as a top place to visit for Catholic field trips. Lovely!

3 Columbia, SC

You can’t buy a ticket to tour the Columbia catacombs, but if you’re brave enough, you can see the mysterious tunnels that all the residents know about. However, no one has an explanation for why they really exist.

“Elaborate brick arches. A two-century-old phenomenon. Cypress floors. Confederate gold. Beautifully crafted brickwork. Underground architectural wonder. Clandestine passageways for state officials. Part of the Underground Railroad.” These phrases include some of what Columbia residents use to describe and explain the tunnels. Built in the 1800s, their original purpose remains a mystery.

Chris Robinson, a professor at USC, has visited and written about the catacombs extensively. He’s even taken artifacts in hopes of finding answers as to why they’re there. So far, no bodies have been found, but the tunnels are miles long—as long as they are ornate. If you’re the adventuring type, go see for yourself and try to answer the centuries-old mystery.^[8]

2 Washington, DC

D.C. has a little bit of everything. You can drop by the White House and try to catch a glimpse of the sitting President, grab some food over at Ben’s Chili Bowl, and even visit the truly breathtaking catacombs and gardens at the Franciscan Monastery. Wait, what?

Built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Franciscan Monastery served as a place for Americans to go when travel to the Holy Land was difficult. Exploring the catacombs makes visiting the monastery feel like a unique adventure, unlike a typical trip to a museum. The designers of the monastery even traveled to the Holy Land and consulted travelers to capture every detail. They wanted a visit to the Franciscan Monastery to feel as authentic as possible. And since the 1920s, the catacombs have been home to the bones of a young child, Saint Innocent, the martyr, that came from the Catacomb of St. Callistus.^[9]

1 Boston, MA

If you’ve been to Boston, you’ve probably stopped by the Old North Church. At the very least, you’ve heard the story of Paul Revere making his famous ride. It’s a rite of passage living in America, I think. What you probably didn’t know is that the Old North Church has a very elaborate crypt underneath it, and there’s plenty of space if you still want to be buried there today. It’s a lot cheaper than you’d think, and you don’t even need to kick out the dusty neighbors. (However, you would have to be cremated!)

Old North Church houses in its basement a crypt containing approximately 1,100 burials. From 1732 to 1860, the church interred congregants below its very floorboards. Since the church has plenty of space beneath and little space above ground, they decided to make the most of what they had to meet the burial demands of the congregation. In the basement, 37 separate brick vaults comprise the tombs in each of which 20 to 40 full coffins could be deposited.

The crypt tour is dark, dusty, and full of history, as you’d probably expect. If you’re tall, you’ll have to watch out for those low-hanging pipes. You’ll be able to see an open vault with an 18th-century coffin still intact. There might even be a ghost or two lingering around, but what else do you expect for the city where it started?^[10]

We expect a lot from our celebrities. Mainly, we expect them to conform to the image we have of them. Celebrities can be (and some say should be) role models. In fact, celebrities are human beings with the same frailties as the rest of us lesser mortals.

A lovable character from a show should be a lovable character in real life. They are not expected to let the mask slip for a moment. Or at least, that is what many of us expect. But being a celebrity brings its own pressures, some of which can be very difficult to cope with.

We shouldn’t be surprised to see our favorites revealing a human side. The problem for them is that their slips are often under public scrutiny like the rest of their lives. Here are 10 times lovable celebrities lost their cool!

10 George Clooney

Even the sophisticated George Clooney has limits to his tolerance. In 1999, ER, the popular series that had launched Clooney to stardom, was drawing to a close. Clooney already had some successful movies under his belt—beginning with From Dusk to Dawn in 1996, and he was working on the comedy Three Kings.

But perhaps he was pushing himself too hard. Clooney was working on other projects simultaneously and spent seven days a week in front of the camera. Meanwhile, behind the camera on the set of Three Kings was the director, David O. Russell. Russell was (and still is) a successful director, but he had a reputation for driving his actors hard and treating them with disdain.

What exactly happened on the set of Three Kings is unclear. Did Russell physically attack an extra? Was he yelling at the crew or just trying to make himself heard on a noisy set? Whatever the circumstances, a fight broke out between Clooney and Russell, and insults and blows flew around. It was, said Clooney, “the worst experience of my life.”

The movie was a critical success that did well at the box office.

9 Cher

Talk show host David Letterman often lets his interviews take their own course. This gave his chats with guests a natural flow that audiences loved. But Cher had reservations about the format knowing that Letterman could be quite hard on his guests if things weren’t going his way.

It took four years to persuade Cher to come on his show. When she finally did, in 1986, she seemed a little uncomfortable as Letterman opened with some trivial and flirtatious observations. When pressed as to why she had been so reluctant to appear, she famously remarked that she thought that Letterman was an a**hole. The live audience reacted differently, and even Letterman was caught off guard.

Still, it made for great television, and Cher returned to the show for future chats—most famously when Letterman was ending his long run of shows in 2015—when it seemed all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

8 Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts (1941–2021) was The Rolling Stones’ drummer for 58 years. His tight, distinctive style was the foundation on which the other group members built their unique rock and roll band. And yet, Watts was completely different from the other band members.

He was reserved, conservative, and reclusive and never shared the hedonistic lifestyle of the others. His first love was jazz; he always preferred playing with his jazz group to working with The Stones.

In 1984, The Rolling Stones were in Amsterdam, Holland. Keith Richards and Mick Jagger staggered back to their hotel at about 5 am. Watts was fast asleep in his room. Jagger thought it would be a good idea to ring Watts, but the drummer didn’t answer. Jagger shouted, “Where’s my drummer?” About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on Jagger’s door. Richards opened the door, and in walked Watts. Impeccably dressed, Watts dragged Jagger to his feet and floored him with a right hook – almost sending Jagger through the window and into the canal below. “Never call me your drummer again,” said Watts before Richards escorted him back to his room.

It took Watts some time to get over the incident.

7 J.K. Rowling

In June 2020, the famous author of the Harry Potter novels read an opinion piece that referred to “people who menstruate.” She retweeted the piece and mentioned that there used to be a word that described such people. Of course, she meant “women,” and she was enraged that the article’s writer had deliberately avoided using the term so as not to offend the transgender community.

The reaction was immediate from actors, other celebrities, and opinion formers. She was, they said, being disrespectful to the transgender community. Instead of backing down and apologizing, Rowling stuck to her guns and expanded on her argument.

If she wanted a quiet life, she should have kept her views to herself. But it’s obviously something that she feels very passionate about. She’s certainly not afraid of controversy.

6 Ryan Grantham

On March 31, 2020, 64-year-old Barbara Waite was playing the piano in her home in Squamish, British Columbia. As she played, she was shot in the back of her head. The killer was her son, actor Ryan Grantham, 24. Grantham had found fame on the show Riverdale and the successful movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Clearly, something had snapped. When the authorities talked to Grantham after the murder, he claimed that he had intended to kill Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and carry out a mass shooting at a university but had changed his mind.

Psychologists uncovered various issues Grantham suffered from, including a depressive state and cannabis use disorder. The courts handed him a life sentence for second-degree murder.

5 Miley Cyrus

Fans loved Miley Cyrus when she played Hannah Montana in the sitcom of the same name. The Disney show revolved around Hannah, the pop star, living a double life where she tried to maintain the illusion that she was just an ordinary teen.

Almost from the beginning of her career, there were signs that Cyrus was not as wholesome as the family-oriented Disney would have liked. A string of sexualized photos seemed inappropriate given her age, and other incidents suggested that Cyrus was an independent-minded young woman.

In July 2008, Selena Gomez and her friend, Demi Lovato, were establishing themselves as rising stars in the Disney world. Gomez had a role in Hannah Montana as a rival pop star, and Lovato was due to play in the movie Camp Rock. If Disney believed that the three girls would form a trio, they were mistaken. Miley Cyrus released a video on YouTube that mocked the two newcomers. She later apologized and withdrew the video, but it only emphasized that Disney had an impulsive young actress on its hands who was determined to do things her own way.

4 Prince Louis

The teachers at Lambrook Preparatory School don’t talk about the royal children under their care. But, if they did, we can imagine they would describe Prince Louis of Wales as a mischievous handful.

Prince Louis was born in 2018, and he is a typical toddler. His parents and older siblings do their best to keep him under control, but the headstrong Louis is determined to have his own way. The British royal family has a very public role, and much of Louis’s young life is inevitably spent under the spotlight. This naturally puts all the family members under pressure to behave as expected, which is, perhaps, a little unfair to a child of Louis’s age. Still, the public adores him and can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.

3 John Lennon

John Lennon wrote the song “Imagine” a year after The Beatles split up. Originally, Lennon claimed sole credit for the composition but later acknowledged that his wife, Yoko Ono, was instrumental in writing it, and “Imagine” is now named a Lennon-Ono number.

From the beginning, the song became an anthem for peace movements and gained further traction after Lennon’s killing. Some critics say that the song is not particularly good. True or not, it found favor with the public and is still played at any number of events by many worthy causes.

Perhaps Lennon got a little fed up with it. This would certainly explain the parody in our video. Having said that, Lennon had a biting wit, and it could be that he’s just having fun at his song’s expense. The parody didn’t go down well with many people—some of whom claimed that it was evidence that Lennon had lost the plot. You’ll have to make your own mind up.

2 Will Smith

It’s inevitable that Will Smith’s infamous “slapping” of comedian Chris Rock would appear on this list. Smith was at the 2022 ceremony to pick up his first-ever Oscar for his role in the movie King Richard.

In introducing Smith, Rock made a crack about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The joke wasn’t particularly funny and referred to Smith’s close-shaven head. We don’t know if Rock knew that Smith was suffering from alopecia, which causes hair loss. Whether he did or not, Will Smith took offense, marched up to Rock, and slapped him. Rock recovered quickly and made light of the incident.

Will Smith later apologized. Some said that Will Smith’s career was over, but this has proved not to be the case.

1 Tom Cruise

The recent pandemic caused a great deal of disruption – not least because some people were suspicious of vaccines and the measures that health authorities imposed. Clearly, Tom Cruise thought people should be wearing masks and blasted crew members working on the latest Mission Impossible who weren’t wearing them.

Some people supported Cruise, while others thought he was throwing his weight around and should have kept his mouth shut.

Perhaps he would have done better talking to the staffers in private rather than making the row public. This wasn’t the first time Cruise showed himself as a controversial celebrity.

DNA testing is something in the realm of futuristic sci-fi movie territory: most people have heard of the concept, but we don’t really believe it works, know much about it, or want to be experimented on to find out! But like most futuristic concepts, DNA testing has some seriously cool applications that can change the way you live your life forever.

Nervous about taking the plunge with your own DNA test kit? Check out ten awesome things you can learn from one of these tests and how it can benefit your day-to-day life.

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #1

Discover new ancestors or distant relatives

DNA test kit services don’t just look at your DNA samples. Instead, they comb through an entire database of DNA samples and cross-reference your DNA with theirs to find common ancestors. This is an amazing discovery tool that has helped people learn about their family tree and relatives that they never even knew existed.

One story helped a woman from Honduras find out about a great, great, great, great, great grandfather who had been dead for three hundred years!

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #2

Getting back to your roots

Do you have a preference for a certain type of beer? Ever notice you’re particularly pedantic about the way people pronounce words? Maybe you have particularly rosy coloring in your cheeks that you just can’t place? Well, all these traits might be the result of your heritage, and DNA test kits can help you solve the mysteries at last. Scanning your DNA across hundreds of regions around the world, these tests can trace your lineage back for generations, and many times the results are enlightening. So, if you always felt like you had a bit of Irish in your heart, a DNA test could prove that you actually do…

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #3

Find a brother or sister you never knew you had…

A recent study showed that more than 22,000 babies are left in hospitals, at churches, or tragically on the side of the road. Sometimes, these babies are adopted by loving homes, cared for, and raised to adulthood. And when these kids grow up, they naturally have a lot of questions about where they came from, who they are, and who their birth parents are.

One of the biggest questions kids from adopted homes have is do they have any siblings. With DNA testing technology, people are finding their birth brothers and sisters, creating new bonds, and answering life-long questions at last. What’s really cool about these discoveries is that a lot of times you’ll find that one of your long-lost relatives looks just like you!

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #4

…or a Parent!

Even more emotionally cathartic than finding a sibling is being able to walk up to your birth mother or father for the first time and give them a hug, ask them your burning questions, or just say hello over a cup of coffee. With billions of records in their databases, DNA test services are making connections faster and easier than ever before. What’s really amazing is that even if your biological parent didn’t take a DNA test, you can still find each other. How? Because of the DNA chain. If anyone related to your birth mother or father took a DNA test, their results will be in the database. DNA services can use these results to connect your DNA back to the biological parent you are searching for.

Often, when people find their birth parents, they also discover many half-siblings that they never knew existed, extending their families even more.

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #5

You might be famous!

Well, you’d probably know if you were famous (paparazzi outside your windows is a good indication), but DNA testing can tell you if you’re related to someone famous. In fact, in one well-known case, a guy found out he was related to Abraham Lincoln from doing a simple DNA test from MyHeritage.

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #6

Or you might be Jewish

In another weird case, a woman who had been raised in a completely Irish Catholic home with Irish Catholicism coursing through their veins made a wild discovery. The woman had strong Jewish strands of DNA mixed in with her Catholic chromosomes. This was confusing to the family since as far back as both parents knew, there hadn’t been any intermarriage at all. After much digging and through the help of 23andMe, a genetic testing lab that does at-home DNA test kits, this family found out that the father had been accidentally switched at birth in the hospital! The two babies had been born at the same time in the same hospital (back in 1913), and because identification procedures were less than perfect back then, the two babies had been given to the wrong parents. After 100 years, the truth came out, both families were reunited, and now they are one big(ger) happy family!

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #7

You can trace your lineage back to locations

Many of us know what general area our heritage came from, but wouldn’t it be cool to know exactly where in that city your family tree took root? With a good DNA test kit service, you can narrow down your location to regions, countries, and sometimes even a specific town. Imagine visiting Sicily, hearing a story about the local butcher from 200 years ago, and knowing ‘hey, that was my granddaddy!’. Now that would be a trip!

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #8

Genetic disposition towards diseases

One of the most useful discoveries you can make from taking a DNA test is what genetic diseases you may be predisposed to. While this is not a medical diagnosis, DNA tests can show you that you have a stronger propensity towards a certain disease or condition than the general public. Since genetic risks are hugely based on probability, knowing what dispositions you have is the kind of early warning information that can help save your life.

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #9

Discovering your health/weight body type

Another fascinating discovery DNA test kits can help you make is what type of biological makeup you have going on inside you. With the right combination of results, you can find out what foods are good for you, how well your body responds to different types of exercises, and what type of eater you are. This kind of information is invaluable if you’ve been trying to lose weight and can’t seem to manage. These DNA test results can help you figure out what diet plan will work for you, how and when to exercise for maximum results, and which foods to avoid for optimal living.

Cool Discoveries and Gains You Can Make From DNA Testing #10

You could change the world

Finally, some DNA test kit services will offer you a chance to take part in a research program. These programs use your donated DNA samples to research the connections between various genetic information and traits or conditions to see if they can find causal relationships, preventative medicines, and cures. Current studies are working with infectious diseases, as well as life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and dementia. So, your DNA sample could really change the world for the better!

DNA test kits are non-invasive, quick, and easy to administer. And as technology advances, the price of these tests keeps going down. So, if you ever had a question about your heritage, personality, or body makeup, now is the time to find your answers.