There are lots of behaviors I once thought were universal. For example, I recently learned that not everyone has an internal monologue running through their head all day long—a fact that, frankly, I’m still struggling to process. In a recent viral thread, people with autism shared things they thought were "normal" until a neurotypical told them otherwise. It’s an absorbing read top to bottom, with the responses exploring everything from body language to conversational style to following social rules and etiquette.
One of the top comments on r/AskReddit relates to "maladaptive daydreaming," which Cleveland Clinic describes as a "mental health issue that causes a person to lose themselves in complex daydreams," usually as a "coping mechanism for other mental health conditions or circumstances."
"I only just this year learned the term 'maladaptive daydreaming' and I had no idea it was uncommon to space out so thoroughly in one's head as to be completely oblivious to all external sensory input for an hour or longer," one user wrote. Another replied, "This...isn't the norm? What do people do when they're bored or have spare time? If I don't have a book or don't feel like looking at my phone I'm basically playing full production movies in my head."
Someone else wrote they often "rehearse conversations in [their] head before having them—like full-on scripts for every possible response." They were "completely shocked" to learn that most people don’t: "It blew my mind that people just wing social interactions without a mental rehearsal. Still can’t imagine how that works."
Another user said they’re compelled to give people "factually correct information" and didn’t realize until their late 30s that it’s "considered rude by neurotypical people to correct their incorrect beliefs about the world." They added, "If something I believe to be true is wrong then I would like to be corrected, with reliable sources, of course. Who wants to walk around scientifically incorrect information?"
One popular response focused on how verbal tone shapes meaning: "Believing exactly what people say when they say something and being shocked when it turns out they didn't mean it the way they said it and there was something in the WAY they said it that I was supposed to have picked up on."
Elsewhere, someone shared that they have to "consciously them [themselves] to show emotions during conversations," with examples like, "It’s time to smile now," "people are laughing; I need to laugh too," and "remember to look at the person talking." They continued, "For so long I just thought that was how people worked. The fact that it comes natural for most people is still kind of hard to understand."
According to The University of Texas at Dallas, people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) "often have problems recognizing the emotions of others from physical cues, such as facial expression or body posture." But in a 2015 study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, researchers sought to investigate how those without ASD experience facial expressivity in those with ASD. The report found that adults without ASD "could identify the emotions expressed by high-functioning adults with ASD, but they often rated the expressions as exaggerated and odd."
"Overwhelmingly, most research in autism focuses on impairments in the person’s ability to understand social and emotional information about other people,” said study co-author Dr. Noah Sasson.“Rarely do we think about others having difficulty understanding the emotions and the thought processes of people with autism, but social interaction is a two-way street."
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Liz and Tracy | ca. 2006 --- Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan --- I… | Flickr
In 2006, the TV show 30 Rock was released into this world, and some of us have never stopped laughing. For over six years, this offbeat sitcom helped provide a much-needed distraction and consistently gave people joy. It received 104 Emmy nominations and 16 Emmy wins, plus countless other awards.
But upon a recent re-watch, it became apparent that the show wasn't just brilliantly funny. Through humor, some could argue that it often delivered more sage advice than most ancient scripture. In fact, even the most absurd lines of dialogue could be applied to current, everyday situations. And (most of) it totally holds up in the modern world.
Each character, from Tina Fey's Liz Lemon to Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy to Jane Krakowski's Jenna Maroney to ESPECIALLYTracy Morgan's Tracy Jordan, is like a modern-day guru. Here are examples of their takes on some of arguably the world's most important topics, even over a decade later:
ON DAILY LIVING
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Tracy Jordan: "Dress every day like you're gonna get murdered in those clothes."
Jack Donaghy: "Never follow a hippie to a second location."
Tracy Jordan: "Here's some advice I wish I would have gotten when I was your age. Live every week like it's Shark Week."
Frank Rossitano: "I get all my news from the radio in Grand Theft Auto."
Liz Lemon: "All of humankind has one thing in common: the sandwich. I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich."
Tracy Jordan: "You and me... it's not gonna be a one-way street. 'Cause I don't believe in one-way streets. Not between people and not while I'm driving."
Jack Donaghy: "Factories provide three things this country desperately needs: jobs, pride, and material for Bruce Springsteen songs."
Pete Hornberger: "When your kid throws a tantrum and holds his breath, you hold your breath too. When you regain consciousness, believe me, he's ready to leave that toy store."
Kenneth Parcell: "I believe that life is for the living. I believe in taking risks and also biting off more than you can chew. And also, people were yelling, and I got confused about the rules."
Tracy Jordan: "I believe that the moon does not exist. I believe that vampires are the world's greatest golfers, but their curse is they never get a chance to prove it. I believe that there are 31 letters in the white alphabet. Wait... what was the question?"
Jack Donaghy: "There are no bad ideas, Lemon. Only good ideas that go horribly wrong."
From mammoths to saber-toothed cats, extinct creatures have fascinated us for decades. But the idea of a supposedly extinct species reappearing after more than a century is nearly unimaginable. That’s exactly how a group of scientists felt during an expedition in Papua New Guinea, where they spotted the black-naped pheasant pigeon—a bird that was thought to be extinct for 140 years. Their elation, captured in a viral video, was shared on Reddit by u/rarepredator in the r/interestingasfuck group, where it’s generating buzz across social media.
“Suddenly I was confronted with this image of what at that time felt like a mythical creature,” shared Jordan Boersma, the expedition's leader, with the National Audubon Society. “It was, without exaggeration, the most surreal moment of my life.” The camera trap had captured an unmistakable image of the elusive pheasant pigeon, which hadn’t been seen since 1882. John Mittermeier of the American Bird Conservancy, who co-led the expedition, echoed the wonder: “To find something that’s been gone for that long, that you’re thinking is almost extinct, and then to figure out that it’s not extinct, it feels like finding a unicorn or a Bigfoot. It’s extraordinarily unusual.”
Speaking to Re:Wild, Mittermeier added that seeing the first photos of the lost pigeon was “the kind of moment you dream about your entire life as a conservationist and birdwatcher.” This eight-member expedition conducted the first-ever camera trapping study on Fergusson Island, according to a press release shared by Re:Wild. The discovery was also a part of “The Search for Lost Birds,” a collaboration between BirdLife International, Re:wild, and American Bird Conservancy, which funded the trip.
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The discovery of this chicken-sized floor-dwelling pigeon wouldn’t have been possible without the help of local villagers and hunters, especially a hunter named Augustin Gregory. Gregory guided the team through the village of Duda Ununa west of Mt. Kilkerran, recommending the most appropriate locations for setting camera traps. He was so keen to help them because he, himself, had seen the pigeon somewhere along the ridgeline, and heard its distinctive calls.
Serena Ketaloya, a conservationist from Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea told Re:Wild that the local community was very excited about the discovery of the long-lost pigeon, and is now doing their best to protect the pheasant pigeon. But even the enthusiasm of locals couldn’t match the reactions that Jordan and Doka had when they first looked through the camera footage. A Redditor, u/zurzoth, commented on their video, saying, “It's like finding Waldo in the actual jungle.”
u/sneeko wrote, “That is the most pure joy reaction I think I've ever seen in my life. I love it.” u/yoshithefluffer added, “If everyone in the world was at least half as passionate for the natural world as these guys we would be in such a better place.” Putting it in a rather sentimental manner, u/naavilatov wrote in a comment, “It's always fun seeing grown men giddy about wholesome things.”
Weather reporters are usually focused on forecasts and climate updates, but every now and then, they’re hit with surprises that change their lives in ways they didn’t expect. That’s exactly what happened to Camila Orti, a media personality who was working with Channel 8 Eyewitness News a decade ago. In 2013, while getting ready to go live, Orti was surprised with an on-set proposal from her longtime boyfriend, Johnny—a moment she later shared on her YouTube channel.
Though the proposal didn’t happen on air, the heartfelt clip quickly circulated across social media, touching viewers everywhere. In the video, Orti introduces the segment, saying, "And a big surprise today for one Channel 8 Eyewitness news reporter when her longtime boyfriend showed up to propose to her," reading from the teleprompter in the studio. Right on cue, Johnny stepped onto the set, dropped to one knee, and proposed, leaving Orti and the studio staff in awe as the moment unfolded in front of them.
"Will you marry me?" Johnny earnestly asked. "Oh my god, yes. This is so embarrassing," Orti said as she accepted Johnny's proposal, laughing while she cried happy tears. The staff in the studio helped Johnny set up his proposal and some of them looked at the loving couple with smiles on their faces. The couple kissed and hugged, and Johnny even revealed a huge engagement cake. The video was later shared by a Reddit user u/ash_jisasa.
Reacting to the proposal u/Critical-Art-9277 wrote, "She got the surprise of her life without actually knowing what she was doing, wonderful, she's so happy." u/Alternative-Peak-486 noted, "I love how this shows how much she was just reading her lines without comprehension and you can see the understanding dawning on her face." u/ericlikesyou mentioned, "Just a friendly reminder, this woman's fiancee probably knew she liked things like this and that's why he did it (good job dude). Do not assume every person wants this kind of proposal in public or at work, that is some fairytale non-existent reality." u/LegendaryOutlaw added, "Sounds like she wasn't live on air, she said it was a 'run-through' which is just a rehearsal. So he DID do it in front of most of her co-workers, but at least she didn't cry on live TV."
Fast forward to 2024, Orti gave birth to their son Enzo on September 9, 2024, and shared her joy on Facebook. "He’s here! Some of you out there did think he’d come early, well, he was two weeks ahead of schedule! Say hello to Enzo! We’re smitten with the little dude and we’re all healthy and happy, albeit sleep-deprived. I’m so overwhelmed with how kind everybody has been throughout my pregnancy journey on air- I so appreciate the kind words and encouragement, both here online and in person! Thank you," she wrote in the caption of her post where she shared the pictures of her infant.
This article originally appeared last year.
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Howard Snitzer survived a heart attack thanks to over 20 people performing CPR on him.
By all logic, Howard Snitzer should have died on March 4, 2011. On that day, he collapsed on the sidewalk outside of Don’s Foods grocery store, suffering a massive heart attack. However, thanks to over 20 strangers performing CPR on him for 96 minutes, Howard survived.
Howard lived in Goodhue, Minnesota, a small Midwestern town that has a population of less than 1,000 people and barely has any traffic lights. Even if Howard was in a bustling, heavily-populated city, 94% of people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest die before they make it to the hospital. However, the quick action of the few neighbors around him saved his life.
Howard Snitzer poses for a photo surrounded by the folks who helped saved his life.Photo credit: Mayo Clinic
A grocery clerk and a customer saw Howard collapse outside of the store and immediately called 911. Two mechanics who ran the car shop from across the street were volunteer first responders trained in CPR. They pulled Howard into the store and used a defibrillator while performing CPR. Paramedic crews from three different towns responded to the call, moving Howard to the Goodhue firehouse, all the while taking turns performing CPR.
"We just lined up and when one guy had enough, the next guy jumped in," Roy Lodermeier, one of the mechanics, told ABC News. "That's how it went."
"Usually, there was someone on the sidelines saying, 'Hey, you want me to take over? You need a break?’" said Candace Koehn, an off-duty corrections officer who was one of the first to help with CPR duties.
In the end, a line of over 20 people took turns, rotating in and out, to keep Howard’s blood pumping through CPR for over an hour until a helicopter from the Mayo Clinic arrived to fly Howard to the nearest hospital for treatment. Typically, paramedics cease CPR after 45 minutes if the victim doesn’t have a pulse, however Howard was showing other vital signs that encouraged the Mayo Clinic workers to continue CPR and fight for his life along with him. After one last massive dose of antiarrhythmic drugs and a shock from a defibrillator, Howard’s heart restarted after nearly two hours of resuscitation.
People who live in smaller communities know that due to their limited resources and access to them, they’re on their own. It can feel isolating at times. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t help. In fact, the community is the only thing that can be counted on. Yet these people weren’t family or friends of Howard. Most of them didn’t even know each other either. They were just a group of people that came together under one common goal: Let’s save this man.
What can be learned from small communities like Goodhue can be replicated to larger ones, too. The 1995 Kobe Earthquake in Japan saw over one million person-days of volunteer activity, a measure of the number of people times the hours they contributed. The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton communities saw strangers chipping in to help the elderly and incapacitated evacuate their homes, feed volunteer rescue crews, and even save horses.
Whether it’s in rural communities like Goodhue or sprawling metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, the common human instinct is to come together to help your neighbor. Whether that neighbor is literally next door or a person you’ve never met.
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In an innovative study, researchers have determined that ancient Egyptian mummies actually smell nice.
If I asked 100 strangers to predict the odors of mummified bodies, I would expect adjectives like "disgusting," "rotten," and "putrid." I definitely wouldn’t expect "woody," "spicy," and "sweet"—three positive descriptors used by scientists who recently examined the scents of nine ancient Egyptianmummies.
The fascinating experiment, conducted by a team from UCL and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, is beneficial on multiple fronts. By analyzing the chemical signatures of various aromas, researchers can assess potential degradation without disturbance, helping museums preserve the mummies. Another bonus: being able to recreate the smell on a chemical level.
One of the scientists, Dr. Cecilia Bembibre, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program, "We want to share the experience we had smelling the mummified bodies, so we're reconstructing the smell to be presented in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo."
Given the overall pleasing scents, ancient Egyptians appear to have done an excellent job in their complex mummification process. "To the ancient Egyptians, mummification was an important mortuary practice aimed at preserving the body and soul for the afterlife through a detailed ritual of embalming of the deceased using oils, waxes and balms," Dr. Ali Abdelhalim, director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, reportedly said in a press release, echoing the abstract of the researchers’ study, published in Journal of the American Chemical Society.
"In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies," Dr. Bembibre told the BBC. "We were surprised at the pleasantness of them."
But how exactly does one smell mummies without opening a sarcophagus and causing damage? The creative solution was inserting a small tube, allowing them to measure the odor without disturbing the physical material. It’s the first study of its kind, said UCL scientist and the paper’s lead author, Matija Strlič, in the press release: “The smell of mummified bodies has for years attracted significant interest from experts and the general public, but no combined chemical and perceptual scientific study has been conducted until now."
In a video interview at Euronews, Strlič elaborated on their process, admitting they were initially worried about finding "notes or hints of decaying bodies."
"We were specifically worried that there might be indications of microbial degradation or microbiological degradation," he said. "But that was not the case." Strlič also noted encountering some "floral" notes, which "probably indicates that some of the mummification materials are plant-based," like resins from pine trees or juniper.
Even thousands of years later, ancient Egyptian culture continues to stir the imaginations of both scientists and the general public. In recent years, for example, archeologists have discovered a 4,281-foot secret tunnel beneath an Egyptian temple and a 3,000-year-old fort linked to a powerful pharaoh. Plus, in an experiment that unintentionally sparked a million memes, researchers in the U.K. used 3D-printing technology to reconstruct the vocal tract of Nesyamun, an ancient Egyptian priest, and produce a single sound. He was a worthy subject for the study, given that, per coffin inscriptions, his dying wish was to speak in the afterlife.
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View of Cuevas del Drach, in Porto Cristo, Manacor, Mallorca, Spain.
View of Cuevas del Drach, in Porto Cristo, Manacor, Mallorca, Spain.
Imagine standing at the entrance of a dark, mysterious cave, its passages twisting deep underground. While the thought of sliding into the unknown might spook most, for thrill-seekers, it's just another day of exploration. The @ActionAdventureTwins, a duo of cave explorers on YouTube, captured this eerie experience by dropping a GoPro into one of the deepest pits in the US. The video, now a viral hit, has left many viewers with chills.
The video, posted by James and Edward, the @ActionAdventureTwins, has racked up 362,000 views and nearly a thousand comments. It also features guests Nate and Ben, identical twins from Pennsylvania who run their own adventure channel, @DeepFreedom.
“We took a GoPro down into the deepest pit in the U.S, and are the first people to drop it down to the bottom of this cave,” the team claimed in the caption but it should be noted that the cave has been explored and mapped by several speleologists for decades before this team. The spot in question here is the Fantastic Pit in Ellison's Cave, located in Walker County on Pigeon Mountain in the Appalachian Plateaus of Northwest Georgia. It is the deepest unobstructed underground pit in the country at 586 feet. Ellison's Cave is 12 miles long and 1,063 feet deep, making it the 12th deepest cave in the United States.
Representative Image Source: Pexels | francesco ungaro
At the start of the footage, one of the twins explains, "We're gonna rappel down like, 128 feet, and we're gonna see the deepest cave in America, and we're gonna drop a GoPro down it." The duo stand at the rocky mouth of the pit, smeared with soil, tangled vines, thick bushes, and dried leaf mold.
The explorers drop the GoPro camera down the opening, sending it deep into the dark belly of the pit. The first drop is about 125 feet down. Then the GoPro is dropped down another pit with a depth of about 586 feet. The footage first depicts scenery of flying dust motes with the sounds of dripping water. The rope attached to the camera descends, cascading between the jagged rocky structures and craggy walls.
In a moment, the team sees a waterfall. “That’s cool,” they exclaim. As the camera goes deeper into the pit, the audio becomes muffled. The camera rotates in circular motion revealing the precipitous cave walls with monstrous accumulation of limestone formations and fractured gypsum rocks. The camera then flashes the bedrock of the cave mounded with stones and pebbles. At this time, the GoPro is 714 feet below the Earth's surface.
Finally, they pull the rope upwards from the black abyss. While pulling it back, they almost seem to lose the camera as it gets entangled in the axle of the drill. One of the twins says at the end of the footage, “I don’t know what this footage looks like but I am just surprised we got the GoPro back.”
The footage of the shadowy chasm gave eerie vibes to several people. “I’m not going to lie, when it got to the bottom I was anxious for a second. I saw one of those white rocks and was like... omg is that a ghost,” commented @bombud1. @trilfiger448 added, “The muffled descending sound was terrifying! And the spinning...I was just waiting for something to jump-scare me.”
@waya420 said, “Honestly surprised, the bottom wasn't full of water. It must drain out somewhere even deeper. It would be fun to explore it with a drone if you could.”
If this wasn’t enough scary an experience, the pair of cavers twins descended the pit a second time in November 2023, this time going all the way down themselves. They spent 12 hours inside this cave, and narrated their experience in the caption, “We can't believe we finally managed to drop down the pit after planning this for a long time. We will be back to this cave to see where it goes down there!”
Correction: The article originally stated that the Ellison's Cave was the deepest pit in America but it is the deepest unobstructed pit in the country. The same has been updated. The error is regretted.
From Stonehenge to the Easter Island statues, scientists continue to be baffled by ancient structures whose origins remain to be a mystery. In a recent discovery about 12.4 miles east of Dijon, France, near the gravel pits of the verdant Ouche valley, relics of ancient life dating back millennia have been unearthed, reported IFL Science.
Representative Image Source: Plant growing in sand (Getty Images)
Archaeologists from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) excavated three areas in the plain and discovered these artifacts and historic structures scattered across an area of approximately 15 acres. These relics revealed occupations between the Neolithic Age and the early Iron Age, as Inrap stated in a press release. The oldest occupation was revealed through a monument consisting of three nested enclosures. There was an 8-meter (26-foot) long "horseshoe" enclosure attached to a circular enclosure 11 meters (36 feet) in diameter and another open enclosure interlocked with the central enclosure. Archaeologists said that the presence of gravel in two enclosures hinted at the existence of a palisade. The team also took stratigraphic sections of the monument, analyzing the layers deposited into it, and suggested that the three enclosures were from the same timeframe.
Representative Image Source: Naracoorte Caves, South Australia. An archeologist brushes soil from fossils at an excavation site.(Getty Images)
“This type of monument seems unprecedented and currently no comparison has been established,” researchers wrote in the press release. "The dating still remains uncertain, however, the only artifacts discovered in the ditches correspond to cut flints which would suggest a chrono-cultural attribution to the Neolithic period." The team further announced that a radiocarbon analysis of the monument would be carried out to assess its chronology in a more elaborate manner.
The team also came across several objects tucked just under the topsoil that suggested that they belonged to the “Bell Beaker period.” The Bell Beaker culture was named after the inverted bell beaker that was used by people for drinking during the European Bronze Age, particularly around 2800 BC. Objects found during the excavation also included seven flint arrowheads, two archer's bracers, a flint lighter, and a copper alloy dagger. They also observed traces of iron oxide and pyrite on an armband, indicating that they were used to light fires.
“Analyses of the composition of the copper alloy of the dagger should make it possible to establish its origin and provide us with information on commercial exchanges at that time,” the team wrote, and added, “The palynological and carpological analyses of the clayey layers at the bottom of these structures provide a lot of information on the natural environment and the landscape of the valley in the first half of the second millennium BC.”
In another excavation, the team found “a necropolis of five circular enclosures” estimated to belong to the period between 1500 BC and 1300 BC. It included four open enclosures and one closed enclosure. The largest open enclosure, featuring a diameter of 24 meters, comprised of remnants of a burial and a funeral pyre. However, most of the burials or unburned bones weren’t preserved because of the acidity of the soil. Scrambled inside the ditch of this enclosure, they also stumbled upon five copper alloy pins and a necklace of forty amber beads that helped them date the necropolis.
Representative Image Source: Woman's hands using a brush to clean up a piece of ancient pottery on an archaeological site (Getty Images)
The last occupation that they discovered was estimated to date back to the first Iron Age, something they proposed after dating the corresponding items found there. Following these excavations, the archaeologists wrote in the press release, “Combined with paleo-environmental studies, they will provide a great deal of information on spatial occupation that will make it possible to propose a scenario for the evolution of this territory over the ages.”
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A mummy in the British Museum
Representative Image Source: Pexels | francesco ungaro
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Representative Image Source: Plant growing in sand (Getty Images)
Representative Image Source: Naracoorte Caves, South Australia. An archeologist brushes soil from fossils at an excavation site.(Getty Images)
Representative Image Source: Italy, Campania, Pompei . Pompei archaeological site, amphora and pottery details (Getty Images)
Representative Image Source: Woman's hands using a brush to clean up a piece of ancient pottery on an archaeological site (Getty Images)