If you, like the Nice News team, have a multitude of adorable animal livestreams bookmarked in your browser, the neat website we’re highlighting today will be right up your alley. Zoolife partners with ethical zoos and animal sanctuaries across the globe to offer visitors 24/7 video of species like western lowland gorillas, snow leopards, and river otters, complete with the ability to zoom in and change angles. It’s subscription-based and donates 50% of its profits to conservation efforts, but you can also watch three habitats for free. — Rebekah, Ally, and Natalie
Featured Story
I Meditated Every Day for 8 Weeks — Here’s How It Went
Malte Mueller/ fStop via Getty Images
September is National Self-Care Awareness Month, and to close it out, we’re featuring a type of story that’s a first for Nice News. Our assistant editor, Rebekah Brandes, embarked on an eight-week meditation journey, practicing for 10-20 minutes a day and taking notes along the way. In the article linked below, she details her experience — both the highs and lows — and shares some helpful advice she received from experts. Check it out to hear how her journey unfolded.
Every 24 hours, 27,000 trees are cut down just to make toilet paper. We think that’s far too many, and Honeycomb agrees, which is why the brand created luxury three-ply made from bamboo. It feels just like regular high-end toilet paper, but doesn’t harm trees. Why bamboo? It grows insanely fast — almost 100 times faster than the average tree — making it a sustainable option to save forests. Bamboo also has uniquely short fibers, which are perfect for creating soft toilet tissue you can feel good about. It’s biodegradable, 100% plastic-free, and Honeycomb delivers straight to you. For the next 24 hours, honeycomb is giving Nice News readers 30% off your first order with code NICE30.
These Female Gibbons Have “Robot-Dance-Like” Moves
Carola Frentzen/picture alliance via Getty Images
Watch female gibbons for a while and you may (if you’re lucky) see them bust out a move or two. Scientists observed the animals’ mysterious penchant for boogying while analyzing footage from zoos and other enclosures, per a preprint of a study set for publication in the journal Primates. “The body becomes stiff, and then these robot-dance-like movements commence,” lead author Kai Caspar told The New York Times of the phenomenon, which you can watch in action here. These female apes seemed to intentionally dance (i.e. swaying, squatting, dipping, and posing) in various contexts, sometimes directing their performances toward human keepers and sometimes moving for reasons not yet completely certain. Curiously, the behavior only presented in adult females and has nothing to do with music, appearing to have evolved independently from the species’ singing. In other words, gibbons have mastered the art of dancing without a soundtrack.
Tech
8 New Emoji Are Entering the Chat, Including a Character With Eyebags
seb_ra/iStock via Getty Images Plus
We’ve come a long way since the days of using semicolons as winky faces and parentheses as smiles: There are over 3,700 emoji characters that help us communicate and express ourselves online. Now, a new batch of emoji from the Unicode Consortium will be entering the digital universe, and you will surely see them making an appearance in group chats. Of the eight newbies set to debut in the coming months and throughout 2025, the one voted “most anticipated” was the ultra-tired eyebag emoji, which is described by Emojipedia.org as “a yellow smiley face with a strained expression and dark markings under its eyes, likely caused by stress or exhaustion.” We’ve all been there, so the new icon will definitely be getting a lot of play once it debuts. Other new emoji include a paint splatter, a shovel, a root vegetable, and a leafless tree. Take a look at the full lineup.
Culture
“The Daily” Host Michael Barbaro Puts a Positive, Soporific Spin on His Popular Podcast
Dejan_Dundjerski/ iStock
Fans of both Nice News and The Daily are in for a treat. Michael Barbaro is teaming up with the meditation app Calm to put a positive, nighttime spin on his popular news podcast. Naturally, it’s called The Nightlight. In the sleep story, available to Calm subscribers, Barbaro puts his iconic, soothing voice to good use as he shares three uplifting, nonpartisan news stories “to relax the mind and send listeners to sleep,” per a press release. Rather than ad breaks, Barbaro breaks up the stories with tidbits on the benefits of things like smiling and gratitude. “I may have a soothing voice, but a lot of the stories I tell are not exactly relaxing,” the New York Times podcast host said. “That’s why I was so excited to work with Calm to tell a sleep story featuring nothing but good news that I hope can help you get to sleep.”
Just in time for their 31st wedding anniversary next month, late night host Stephen Colbert and his wife, Evie McGee Colbert, are sharing a collection of their family’s favorite recipes — and it proves that having fun together is a key ingredient in maintaining a happy marriage. The cookbook includes everything from appetizers to desserts, along with a helping of playful behind-the-scenes stories from their South Carolina home. Watch the pair whip up one of the recipes.
When Will Ferrell’s longtime pal and former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele came out to him as a trans woman, the Anchorman actor had an interesting idea to both show his support and learn about Steele’s experience: a coast-to-coast roadtrip. Cameras in tow, they begin navigating this new chapter of their friendship while Steele reintroduces herself to some of her old stomping grounds across the country. Catch the documentary on Netflix.
This Week in History
Yosemite National Park Is Established
October 1, 1890
Universal History Archive/Getty Images
The area we now know as Yosemite National Park, located in California’s Sierra Nevada (and pictured above in a 1898 photochromic print), was originally inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous people. In the mid-19th century, as a stream of miners and settlers came to prospect during the gold rush, President Abraham Lincoln signed the first-ever order protecting a land for public enjoyment. Just a few decades later, thanks to the efforts of environmentalist John Muir, Congress passed a bill designating it a national park. Home to towering trees, waterfalls, and more than 400 animal species, Yosemite has inspired many a visitor — and many a work of art. Check out side-by-side comparisons of photos and paintings of the park.
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