If you’ve been wondering how much that heirloom ring from grandma is actually worth in today’s market, there’s an app for that. Unvault is a financial tech company that allows users to upload their jewelry and track its value in real-time (particularly useful right now given the surging price of gold). The free service also gives you the option to sell your items once you’ve learned their worth — check it out.
Train rides that boast stunning views of the cosmos
Health
A Slight Tweak to Your Walking Routine Could Help Restore Your Body’s “Sixth Sense”
NickyLloyd—E+/Getty Images
Walking’s ability to boost physical and mental well-being has been sung far and wide — but the activity comes with one health pro you may not have heard of. As we age or after an injury, our proprioception, aka our “sixth sense” that enables us to identify where our bodies are in space, declines. Walking on uneven surfaces such as grass or sand, however, can help train your proprioception in your lower body and improve your balance. If your proprioception is impaired, you’re more susceptible to falling, as you can “get into a position where you need to catch yourself, but you don’t have the quickness to catch yourself,” physical therapist Claire Morrow told HuffPost. And if you don’t work on restoring this sense, it’s possible to lose it entirely. But when you walk on slanted ground, you challenge your limbs to react to something new. Your proprioception kicks in, notifying your body that “the position of your joint is different and so it would activate muscles in a different way so that you don’t fall over to the right,” Morrow said. Want to give it a try? Morrow advises starting on pressed dirt, then working up to sand and grass. If you’d like more stability, walk with hiking poles for extra support. And “if you don’t mind getting your feet dirty, then doing it barefoot is sometimes a fun way” to get into the habit too, she noted.
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Environment
Back to Basics: Why Adobe Is Experiencing a Building Resurgence
Christian Mark Inga Osorio—iStock/Getty Images Plus
Adobe bricks have been used for construction for millennia — and though their popularity has faded in the U.S., a revival is now underway for the ancient building material. Typically consisting of water, earth, and a natural binder like straw or grass, adobe is being used to build everything from museums to DIY homes. The simple mixture is arguably “very high-tech,” UC Berkeley architecture professor Ronald Rael told CBS Sunday Morning. “If you think about inviting material scientists to come up with a building material that was low-cost, nontoxic, fire-resistant, and recyclable, you’d probably spend millions of dollars trying to find what that material is, but humans have spent 10,000 years developing that material, a material that responds to every climatic zone on the planet.” Some architects are combining sun-baked adobe with modern construction elements like steel beams and climate control systems, as seen in the new Georgia O’Keeffe Museum being constructed in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For landowners Matteo and Laura Clark, who are making bricks with soil from their lot to build their house in nearby Taos, adobe offers a sustainable alternative to traditional materials — and a tangible connection to their home. “I’ll pick up a brick and I’ll see a handprint of somebody that helped make our brick, or maybe one of our own handprints,” Matteo said, adding, “It’s almost spiritual that people have embedded their fingerprints into the walls.” See their adobe home in progress.
Science
Photographic Memory Is a Myth — Here’s What Research Really Says About Remembering
F.J. Jimenez—Moment/Getty Images
This article was written by Gabrielle Principe, a professor of psychology at the College of Charleston, for The Conversation. Hollywood loves a superpower. Not all involve capes or cosmic rays. Some are cognitive: characters who can remember everything. In movies and on TV, viewers repeatedly encounter those with extraordinary minds who glance once at a page, a room, or a face — and later re-create every detail with surgical precision. You see it everywhere: Suits, Sherlock, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Even in children’s literature there’s fifth grader Cam Jansen, who activates her photo-like memory by saying “Click!” Most recently, it appeared in the television series The Pitt, set in a hospital emergency department. When the digital patient board suddenly went offline, medical student Joy Kwon saved the day by effortlessly reciting from memory every lost detail — names, rooms, doctors, conditions, vitals. It’s a gripping moment. The stakes are high, recall is perfect, and the implication is clear: Some people have minds that function like high-resolution cameras. Learn what research says about photographic memory.
In Other News
The House passed a bipartisan bill to increase housing affordability and restrict corporate buyers (read more)
Ancient Egyptians usedearthquake-resistant engineering methods to build the Great Pyramid, a new study says (read more)
Naturally created hydrogen from a Canadian mine could power over 400 households a year (read more)
Seats for “superfans”: To support live music, Spotify will reserve tour tickets for artists’ biggest devotees (read more)
With an open-ocean exhibit, Hawaii’s largest aquarium offers visitors a deeper knowledge of the world beneath (read more)
Inspiring Story
A legacy of love
Merlin Van Lawick, Jane Goodall’s grandson, has been involved with his grandmother’s conservation organization for “as long as he can remember,” he said. But since Goodall’s passing last year, Van Lawick has spent even more time engaging with the Jane Goodall Institute, working for its conservation science and communications team to further its environmental mission. “She was like my role model,” he said, adding, “I try and be half the person that she was.” Read his full interview with Mongabay.
Photo of the Day
Frederic J. BROWN—AFP/Getty Images
The new Jelly Dreamscapes exhibit at Long Beach, California’s Aquarium of the Pacific is more than just a jellyfish display — it’s an immersive experience, complete with “dream-like soundscapes” and mood lighting to help visitors discover the “soul-soothing effects” of the sea creatures. Open through April 2027, the exhibit will feature over 40 jellyfish species on a rotating basis, including the Pacific sea nettles pictured here.
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