Here's who 'Madden NFL 2016' thinks will win the Super Bowl:

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You might as well pack it in, Broncos. It seems like the Carolina Panthers already have Super Bowl 50 in the bag.

That is, if you believe Madden NFL 2016's prediction. A simulation run in the game says the Panthers will eek out a win over the Broncos, with a final score of 24-20.

The prediction is an annual tradition for the Madden franchise, which has picked the Super Bowl winner successfully nine times out of 12 years the prediction has been run. To make their pick, EA Sports producers design a matchup between the two upcoming Super Bowl competitors, playing with their most current rosters. The faux Bowl's difficulty is also set to All-Madden, the game's most challenging level.

"We run it one time and record the results. Much like the actual Super Bowl, both teams get one shot to claim victory," said Seann Graddy, senior producer on Madden NFL 16.

The teams are entirely controlled by the game, with no human even touching controllers until destiny has been played out, Graddy added.

So what did this year's simulation foretell? The Panthers led the first half, scoring a touchdown in both the first and second quarters, along with an additional field goal. Peyton Manning rallied his team in the third quarter with a touchdown pass, and two field goals nearly put them neck-in-neck with the Panthers — they trailed 17-13.

For the final quarter, the simulation showed the Broncos scoring another touchdown, finally putting them in a 20-17 lead. But virtual Cam Newton scored the final game-winning touchdown, sealing the victory for the Panthers.

The simulation also crowned Newton as MVP, thanks to completing 19 of 26 passes for 216 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Last year, Madden predicted Tom Brady would get the Super Bowl MVP trophy, after it said he had 335 yards and 4 touchdowns. In reality, Brady finished the game with 328 yards and 4 touchdowns, only seven yards shy of the simulation.

Graddy said there are very few times the game's predictions have been completely off base, though 2013 Super Bowl did upset their record:

"We definitely didn’t foresee the Seahawks blowout win a couple years ago; the Madden NFL prediction had the Broncos winning the game 31 – 28. But in our defense, no one else saw that outcome coming either."

Broncos fans are probably hoping for a similar surprise upset this Sunday.

The Panthers will win Super Bowl 50, according to 'Madden 2016'

'Madden NFL 2016' has predicted Super Bowl 50's winner: the Carolina Panthers.

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Mary Lou Bruner believes that Noah kept baby dinosaurs on his ark, that President Obama is a former drug-addled gay prostitute, and that the New World Order is secretly working to reduce the world’s population by roughly two-thirds. Mary Lou Bruner also believes that she would make a great representative on the Texas State Board of Education. Somehow, Texas disagreed, and last night, Mary Lou Bruner lost.

Mary Lou Bruner’s once bright campaign might very well have succeeded, were it not for her need to post rambling diatribes on Facebook about how Ahmed "clock boy" Mohammed was a false flag and how school shootings are a product of the Bible being taken out of the classroom. But once people got wind of Mary Lou’s beliefs, her unorthodox views overshadowed her more reasonable platforms, like her call to label the Boy Scouts of Americas as "a homosexual organization," for instance.

Mary Lou’s opponent, chiropractor and Lufkin school board president Kevin M. Ellis, beat her by "a wide margin," according to The New York Times, which is perhaps the first encouraging bit of news to come out of the Texas public education system in years.

Since gaining national attention, Mary Lou Bruner has apparently decided to make her Facebook private. We can’t imagine why.


(CNN) What health condition concerns Americans the most? Cancer -- more so than obesity, neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and even infectious diseases, such as Zika, Ebola and HIV/AIDS.

That's just one of many findings about Americans' opinions on health that emerged in the latest Mayo Clinic National Health Checkup survey results, released Tuesday.

The idea behind the survey was to simply "listen to our patients," said Dr. John Wald, medical director for public affairs at the Mayo Clinic, who helped conduct the survey.

"This survey allows us to extend this same principle beyond the walls of our campuses to assess the current state of the American health consumer and to begin to define gaps and opportunities to better interact and educate these same consumers," he said. "It is only through effective listening that you begin to define the best solutions."

The survey was conducted July 28 through 31 and involved 1,008 adults nationwide.

The participants were asked questions via telephone about which health conditions they believed to be the "most important" health challenge in the country, how much progress modern medicine was making in treating those conditions, and which health care concerns would weigh into their decision for voting for a specific presidential candidate, among others.

The results revealed that a majority of the respondents -- 37% -- believed cancer to be the No. 1 most significant health care challenge in the country, followed by obesity as No. 2, neurological diseases as three, diabetes as four and heart disease as five. Infectious diseases were thought to be the least significant.

"Interestingly, only 3% viewed the Zika virus as a significant health care challenge," Wald said.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, but cancer comes in as a close second. About 84% of respondents said they would be interested in a vaccine to prevent cancer, if one existed.

More people living in the West (21%) than in the South (13%), Northeast (10%) or Midwest (8%) said they would not be interested in a cancer vaccine.

Most respondents -- 38% -- considered brain cancer to be the "scariest" type. About 20% of respondents said pancreatic was the most concerning type, 10% said lung, 8% said breast, 7% said prostate, 5% said colon, and 5% said skin.

JUST WATCHED Is this the cure to cancer? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Is this the cure to cancer? 03:28

"Cancer has always been a scary disease in American life, especially in the years when there was little one could do about it," said Dr. Howard Markel, director of the University of Michigan Medical School's Center for the History of Medicine, who was not involved in the new survey.

"Early in the 20th century well into the 1970s, people called it the 'C-word' and did not want to discuss it publicly. That has been changing in the past few decades, thanks to the host of wonderful advances in modern medicine, but serious cancer remains, well, serious. So I am not surprised," he said of the survey results.

However, while respondents pointed to cancer as the most important health care challenge, 74% said that they believed some progress was being made to address it.

Most of the respondents -- 83% -- said some progress was being made in developing new treatments for heart disease, and fewer -- 52% -- said progress was being made with obesity.

Respondents also weighed in on their personal health in the survey. About 86% said they get headaches; 63% said their headaches are triggered by stress, 54% said by not eating and 41% said by not getting enough sleep.

About 72% of respondents defined a good night's sleep as snoozing seven to eight hours, but nearly half -- 49% -- said they achieve that much shut-eye half the time or less, on average.

With the 2016 presidential election approaching in November, 95% of respondents said health care issues would weigh into their decision in voting for a specific candidate.

What influences their choice of a presidential candidate? About 79% said lowering health care costs, 78% said improving the quality of health care, 72% said improving access to health care, and 63% said increasing funding for medical research.

Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

Although a survey of some 1,000 adults may not be representative of all Americans, asking questions about what concerns the country is important, said Philip Alcabes, professor of community health at Hunter College of the City University of New York, who was not involved in the new survey.

"Ideally, our health policy is based on both the evidence about what real threats to Americans' health exist and also what Americans are truly most worried about. ... So, it makes perfect sense to ask these questions," Alcabes said.

"What's interesting but not surprising about the Mayo Clinic survey is the intensity of concern about the delivery of health care services. The cost, quality of care, access to care," he said. "I don't know how representative this is, but those are concerns that we hear in so many forums and from so many sectors of society, so it's not surprising that that's what emerges from this survey also."

Americans believe cancer is the "most important" health care challenge in the country, according to a new Mayo Clinic survey.

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The 1 quality we often mistake for weakness can actually make you stronger  #thirdmetric

We tend to equate vulnerability with weakness, but according to author and researcher Brene Brown, who has made a career out of researching shame and vulnerability, allowing ourselves to be truly seen and understood by others is a powerful source of creativity, innovation and transformation.

"Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage," Brown writes in Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. "Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness."

Brown goes on to explain that love or any sort of connection are impossible without vulnerability, which she defines as the courage to show up and let yourself be seen. More leaders have become comfortable opening up and letting themselves be vulnerable, letting people see them in a real, rather than constructed light. And far from being a weakness, Brown argues that it's a sign of strength:

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

From President Obama to Jennifer Lawrence to the Dalai Lama, here are eight powerful moments from public figures who expressed their vulnerabilities.

During a 2008 campaign stop in New Hampshire, Clinton shared an emotional moment with her supporters after a voter asked, "How do you do it? How do you keep up?" As CNN reported, the presidential hopeful got choked up as she responded:

"It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do... You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards... This is very personal for me, it's not just political, it's [that] I see what's happening, we have to reverse it."

In a rare show of emotion, President Obama cried on air twice when addressing the nation in the wake of the Newtown tragedy and expressing his "overwhelming grief."

"Each time I learn the news I react not as a president, but as anyone else would -- as a parent. And that was especially true today," Obama said, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping children fulfill their dreams."

'Today' Show viewers love co-host Savannah Guthrie because she comes across as warm, genuine and authentic. Guthrie recently opened up to Elle Magazine about the struggle of losing her father at the age of 16:

"Matt [Lauer] asked me at dinner the other day, 'What would you say the impact of losing your dad so young was on you?' And I said ultimately it made me more sensitive and gentler, and, I hope, kinder. Of course it was terrible, and I think about him every day -- but there's something about a dramatic event like that that makes you a bit more tender, a bit softer."

A 2011 video of the Dalai Lama in Hunsur, India, racked with sobs as he spoke about his past and about bodhicitta, a Buddhist concept meaning the "mind of enlightenment" that cultivates compassion, went viral on YouTube.

As the beloved spiritual leader discussed the need for individuals to cultivate the "altruistic mind cherishing others over oneself," he broke down, sobbing as the audience waited in silence, and showing all who were present the power of his own empathy for others.

Jim Carrey has opened up about many personal issues and isn't afraid to share his own flaws with the public. He's discussed his quest for spirituality and struggle with depression in a matter-of-fact, relatable way -- and it's part of why his fans love him so much. At Elton John's Oscars viewing party this year, Carrey showed up wearing fake, huge feet and tiny angel wings, and explained that the costume symbolized his spiritual growth.

"I feel a lot of the time like I’ve got tiny little wings and giant feet and I want to get off the Earth into a spiritual place, but I’m grounded all the time by my own flaws," Carrey told the Mirror.

He also discussed how spirituality has helped him through his struggle with depression in a 2006 60 Minutes interview. "I was on Prozac for a long time... I had to get off at a certain point because I realized everything is just okay," said Carrey.

When "Hunger Games" actress Jennifer Lawrence -- who has come to be known and loved in Hollywood for her goofy, candid comments and refreshing authenticity -- tripped on the way to accept her Academy Award this year, her status as America's sweetheart was cemented. And the reason people love her so much? Because she doesn't try to play it cool.

"You guys are just standing up because I fell and it's embarrassing, but thank you," laughed Lawrence during her acceptance speech. "This is nuts!"

Lucy Danziger, Editor-in-Chief of Self Magazine, opened up about a (somewhat embarrassing) moment of personal realization she had while at yoga class. On a particularly frantic day, Danziger was running late and accidentally put on her shirt backwards (so that the built-in bra was hanging out for all to see). She didn't realize until it was too late -- she had gotten into the room and the door had closed behind her. After a moment of panic, Danziger decided to let it go and breathe through it, and enjoyed a relaxing class despite the fact that her bra was sticking out.

Danziger said at a Huffington Post health event Tuesday that the blog post she wrote about the experience generated a more overwhelming response than nearly anything else she's ever written for the magazine. According to Danziger, readers were happy to know that the editor-in-chief of their favorite magazine wasn't so different from them.

At a recent Huffington Post AdWeek panel, the "Newsroom" actress had a moment of connection with the audience when she opened up about her struggle with trichotillomania, an anxiety disorder that causes her to pull out her eyelashes..

"I don’t bite my nails, but I rip out my eyelashes," Munn told the New York Daily News when she first opened up about the impluse-control disorder last year. "It doesn’t hurt, but it’s really annoying. Every time I run out of the house, I have to stop and pick up a whole set of fake eyelashes."

The One Quality We Often Mistake For Weakness Can Actually Make You Stronger

We tend to equate vulnerability with weakness, but according to author and researcher Brene Brown, who has made a career out of researching shame and vul...

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FDA Warns Common Food Ingredient Can Be Fatal To Dogs

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released an official warning to dog owners on the dangers of xylitol, an artificial sweetener used in many household products. While safe for humans, the ingredient can be fatal for their furry companion.

The toxicity of xylitol for dogs has been known for some time, but this is the first official advisory from the FDA. The warning comes amid an increase in the number of dogs accidentally poisoned by xylitol – a figure that has increased from 82 cases in 2004 to more than 3,700 in 2014.

Products that contain xylitol include sugar-free gum, certain baked goods, cough syrup, chocolate bars, children’s and adult chewable vitamins, mouthwash, and toothpaste.

If ingested by your pet pooch, the sweetener can cause their pancreas to rapidly release insulin, dropping their blood sugar to dangerously low levels – all within 10 to 60 minutes of consumption.

"In people, xylitol does not stimulate the release of insulin from the pancreas. However, it’s different in canines: When dogs eat something containing xylitol, the xylitol is more quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, and may result in a potent release of insulin from the pancreas," wrote the FDA in a statement. This results in hypoglycemia, a possibly life-threatening condition if not treated.

Depending on the amount consumed, side effects can take up to 12 to 24 hours to appear, so it is best to stay vigilant during this time. Symptoms to look for include vomiting, weakness, staggering, lack of coordination, collapse, and seizures. If your dog has consumed xylitol, take your pet to the nearest vet or emergency animal hospital.

Other items that dogs should not eat include grapes, raisins, alcohol, onion, garlic, macadamia nuts, avocados, and caffeine. As a side note, the FDA said they do not know whether xylitol is poisonous to cats, as they tend to show disdain for sweets.

The takeaway: There is nothing sweet about giving your dog artificial sweetener, so keep your gum and chocolate bars out of paws reach.


You won't believe how many people don't know where the Grand Canyon is

You'd think that a canyon that is 277 miles long with points 18 miles wide and more than a mile deep would be hard to miss.

However, more than half of people in a landmark survey released last week have no clue where the Grand Canyon is located.

Intrepid Travel, a company specializing in small excursions, surveyed 2,000 people across the U.S. -- and found 57 percent of respondents didn't know the Grand Canyon is in Arizona.

What makes that stat particularly sad is that 70 percent of those surveyed claimed they knew their national landmarks.

However, the actual poll findings suggest otherwise:

63 percent didn't know the Space Needle is in Seattle, but 17 percent believed it was in Cape Canaveral, Florida

40 percent of respondents didn't know that Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota

Only 31 percent of those surveyed knew Yellowstone National Park is located in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana

The findings might make some Americans shake their heads in disgust, but Intrepid Travel spokesperson Leigh Barnes hopes they give people a reason to make U.S. travel a priority.

"Exploration and discovery fuel curiosity and make us smarter, more aware," Barnes said. "America has so many treasures and unique sites to explore, hopefully people get out there and see all this country and the world have to offer."

57 Percent Of People In Landmark Survey Don't Know Where Grand Canyon Is

A lot of Americans apparently slept through geography and history.


The ghost of a president is rumored to haunt this famous cathedral

Halloween comes just before Dia De Los Muertos, All Saints and All Soul's Day, which are times to remember and honor the souls of those who have passed before us..

However, some churches claim that the spirits of the dead are still hanging around their hallways and graveyards. Mysterious lights, muffled voices, and weird apparitions are just some of the many unexplained phenomena that persist around these places.

From the ghost of a long-dead sea captain in Florida to the phantom of a governess that perished in a house fire, these churches swear that they are haunted by spirits that refuse to leave. Look through them, if you dare..

Some say that the cemetery is haunted by the headless ghost of an actor, who donated his head to science. The church's proximity to Broadway may be one of the reasons behind this rumor. Apparently, he wanders the earth in search of his lost skull.

Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC

Apparently, this stunning cathedral is home to the ghosts of a president and a church employee, as well as countless gargoyles and a crypt. Visitors say that Woodrow Wilson, the only president buried there, walks the halls at night, as they can hear the gentle "tap, tap" of his cane. Another reason for paranormal activity is the 1946 library murder. People have reported feelings of unease as well as the sensation of being watched, coming from the corners of the basement.

Built before the Civil War, this church is reportedly visited by the ghost of a solider killed during the conflict. The most haunted part of the building is the church tower. Others claim that the reason for the haunting involves a young woman who was murdered there. The eerie lights and unexplained sounds are reason enough to stay away after dark.

Haunted Churches Will Give You The Shivers

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Elite college sued after trying to fix campus sexual assault case

A would-be 2014 Amherst College graduate is suing the school for $2 million in damages after it withheld his diploma to investigate allegations that he sexually assaulted a former roommate almost five years ago.

Last month, the accused student filed a lawsuit against Amherst in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, under the name John Doe. The suit claims he's facing double jeopardy for an offense he didn't commit.

The case embodies the complications and confusion facing a prestigious Massachusetts school as it tries to address its handling of similar cases, after coming under fire for claims it failed multiple sexual assault survivors.

Because the case is now playing out in court, the roommate who claims he was assaulted told HuffPost that he feels forced out into the open. He never had any intention of making his allegations public, he said. Many of the documents related to the college's 2014 investigation, including some from the roommate and Doe, have been submitted to the court.

"If you are anyone from the class of 2013, you know him, and you know I was his roommate freshman year," Doe’s former roommate, who requested anonymity to protect his privacy, told The Huffington Post. "It's sort of what I was trying to avoid."

According to court documents, Doe's roommate reported that in the early morning hours of Dec. 19, 2009, he awoke to find Doe in his bed, smelling of alcohol.. Doe later told college investigators he had seven to nine drinks that night. According to undisputed facts of the investigation, the roommate told Doe that he did not want to have sex. The investigator's report states that Doe said it wasn't clear to him whether the complainant was enjoying his kissing, "but he did not show signs of resisting," and sexual contact ensued.

Court documents also indicate that during his freshman year in fall 2009, the roommate had reported Doe to the college for coming into his private bedroom on multiple occasions at night in just his underwear, alleging Doe was sometimes intoxicated and solicited him for sex. An Amherst investigator's report from 2014 stated such episodes like this happened on several occasions leading up to the alleged 2009 assault.

The roommate has denied reciprocating Doe's advances in any way on the morning of Dec. 19. According to statements to the investigator in 2014, he took a shower after the alleged assault and spent the rest of the night out of his room, contacting his family.

Emails submitted to the court indicate that later that morning, Doe’s roommate called Assistant Director of Residential Life Pamela Stawasz, who relocated the roommate to another room and helped him purchase new bedding. The roommate told HuffPost that the school did not tell him at the time that pursuing adjudication was an option.

According to documents provided to the court, Dean Allen Hart placed Doe on medical leave in 2010 for problems with "alcohol use" and "deeper personal issues" that had contributed to "multiple episodes of improper, non-consensual personal contact with other students." Hart also wrote in another letter that he placed Doe on a medical leave "rather than impose a disciplinary suspension."

When Doe returned to the college, he was warned in a letter that if he violated the honor code, he could face "further disciplinary action." A March 2010 letter from the school to Doe, provided to the court, noted that his behavior had violated the honor code and "could have resulted in disciplinary actions being taken against you."

The roommate said he dropped out in 2011 to avoid going to school with Doe.

The roommate told HuffPost that he learned in the spring of 2014 that Doe had been hired by the college as a "Green Dean," which would require Doe to travel the country speaking to graduating high school seniors who were considering applying to Amherst.

The roommate told HuffPost he contacted Amherst officials to find out what happened. Court documents indicate that Hart was unaware that Doe had been hired by the college, and that the staff that hired him was unaware of the 2009 issue.

Amherst’s annual report on discipline for the 2009-10 year makes no mention of the adjudication against Doe.

On May 14, Amherst Title IX coordinator Laurie Frankl, who oversees sexual misconduct complaints, learned of the incident and moved to have an independent attorney formally investigate the allegation against Doe, with the college as a complainant. The roommate who reported the assault is not a party to the investigation.

Doe states in his suit that he was informed he couldn't receive a degree until a misconduct board hearing took place. Then, Doe says he was told, the faculty and trustees would vote to confer his degree, in October at the earliest. Amherst also informed Doe that he would no longer be employed by the college.

Doe filed his lawsuit last month, seeking an injunction against Amherst to stop it from pursuing its disciplinary process. Doe claims he's facing double jeopardy in the case because his medical leave constituted a punishment.

Doe, a South Africa native, also told the court he risks deportation due to the loss of his job with the college. Luke Ryan, Doe's attorney, said his client "wishes to be compensated for the loss of a job with the Office of Admission that he was counting on," and to hold Amherst "accountable for its unjust actions." Ryan said Doe hopes the lawsuit "will make Amherst less likely to put another student through the ordeal he is experiencing."

"We allege that the College breached that contract by seeking to subject him to further discipline for an incident that led to him being placed on probation," Ryan added, noting his client was on probation after returning from medical leave.

When asked for comment, the college defended its actions as in keeping with its policies, and characterized Doe's claim that the loss of his employment with Amherst puts him at risk of deportation as "speculation."

The judge declined to rule from the bench Tuesday and is expected to issue a written opinion by July 21.

The roommate told HuffPost that he believes the college "mishandled everything" in 2009, but is trying to make things right.

"Amherst is making some really good decisions, from my point of view," he told HuffPost, "and they've put themselves in a very precarious legal situation to do that. They're getting sued ... and they don't necessarily have anything to gain from it."

Amherst Sued For Trying To Handle A Sexual Assault Case Almost 5 Years Later

A would-be 2014 Amherst College graduate is suing the school for $2 million in damages after it withheld his diploma to investigate allegations that he s....

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And the most overpaid star in Hollywood is....

'Forbes' has released their 2013 tally of which actors don't deserve to make quite so much money

Money-meets-Hollywood list-maker extraordinaire Forbes has released their 2013 list of the most overpaid actors — and this year the booby prize goes to Adam Sandler.

As Forbes points out, Sandler is part of a shrinking roster of stars who command huge paychecks for every project, but the movies that helped set those pay quotes don’t always justify the money. For Sandler, the most prominent examples of that wasted money are Jack & Jill and That’s My Boy. "We estimate that for every dollar Sandler was paid on his last three movies, the films returned an average of $3.40," Forbes‘ Dorothy Pomerantz writes.

Here’s who rounded out the rest of the top 10:

Of all the lists that Forbes releases, this is perhaps the one that is hardest to draw on for a big-picture meditation about Hollywood. The list only accounts for pay, expenses and profits, so actors who may boost prestige (Matt Damon, for example) may be worth something intangible that’s not factored into the equation. The list contains a mix of genders and a mix of comedy- and action-stars; and it’s also a ratio of pay-to-return, which means not-quite-as-expensive stars can make the list. So, unlike the publication’s lists of top-earning stars or a list of top-earning movies, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, say, women are underpaid or that studios depend too much on action. The only big take-away, then, is a basic of most economic markets: past performance does not guarantee future results.

And in the end Adam Sandler himself provides a great example of that truth. The Forbes list looks at three years worth of work, but their master ranking of earnings is put together over the summer, which means that the three-year period ended June 1, 2013. That was just a few weeks before Sandler (and Kevin James) appeared in Grown Ups 2, a movie that has grossed nearly $247 million worldwide — which just might keep Sandler off of next year’s list.


She Lays A Stick Of Cheese On Dough. Watch What Happens When She Folds It Over.

Pillsbury’s Lauren Chattman teamed up with the folks at Howdini to show you how easy it is to impress the cheese lovers in your family with this homemade stuffed crust pizza recipe that serves up to eight people.

1 can (13.8 oz) refrigerated classic pizza crust

24 slices pepperoni (from 3.5-oz package)

2 cups shredded Italian cheese blend (8 oz)

Heat oven to 425°F. Spray or grease 12-inch pizza pan. Unroll dough; place in pan. Starting at center, press out dough to edge of pan, pressing up and extending over side by 1 inch. Place string cheese around inside edge of crust. Fold extended edge of dough over cheese; pinch firmly to seal. Spoon sauce evenly over dough. Top with pepperoni and cheese blend. Bake 12 to 16 minutes or until crust is deep golden brown and cheese in center is melted. Cut into wedges.

Seriously, how easy is that?! I’m absolutely making this for my family this weekend!

When it comes to the perfect pizza, there’s no such thing as too much cheese. It’s downright impossible! That’s why I fell in love with this simple yet scrumptious stuffed crust pizza anyone can make. The secret (and brilliant) ingredient? String cheese! Pillsbury’s Lauren Chattman teamed up with the folks at Howdini to show you...


Kelly Mantle, a transgender artist, is now the first person to be eligible for an Oscar in both male and female categories.

Mantle, born a male, plays a transgender prostitute in the Miguel Ali-directed comedy drama Confessions of a Womanizer.

While filing Academy Award submission forms, the film’s producers were faced with the question to place Mantle in either the male or female category. They settled on submitting Mantle’s name for consideration in both categories, The Wrap reports.

The Academy repeatedly agreed and said the transgender performer is eligible for nomination in both categories.

Confessions, which also stars C. Thomas Howell, Gary Busey, and Andrew Lawrence, premiered in March 2014 at the Cinequest Film Festival and follows a compulsive womanizer who becomes best friends with a transgender prostitute. It has won several awards.

Mantle has racked up more than 30 acting credits since 1999, the first being a guest appearance on the MTV show Undressed.

Mantle’s most high-profile role to date was as a contestant on the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Transgender Star Eligible for Male and Female Oscar Categories

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FBI Arrest Man For Doing Something Horrible At The Whole Foods Salad Bar

On Tuesday we reported that the FBI was on the hunt for a man who was seen contaminating the prepared food and salad bars at one Whole Foods location in Michigan.

Today news broke that the mystery substance was a mixture of hand cleaner, water, and Tomcat mice poison. And now, according to the New York Times, the FBI has taken into custody one man whom they believe to be the culprit. The authorities have yet to release his name to the public.

The dangerous concoction was sprayed onto the self-serve food bars and some stacks of produce. But the most chilling detail is that he reportedly targeted multiple grocery stores—not just one Whole Foods in Ann Arbor, but a location of Meijer and potentially other supermarkets in Flint, officials say.

Whole Foods in Ann Arbor responded quickly, removing and replacing all of the the salad and hot food bar trays immediately. "All food was thrown out and the store team thoroughly cleaned and sanitized all food stations, equipment and serving utensils before restocking with fresh items," the company's public relations representatives, Allison Phelps, told MLive. And luckily, no illnesses have been reported.

The man in question could face felony charges for intentional adulteration of food in interstate commerce, among other charges—though his motive remains unknown.

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You won't believe what was just found on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean

By Becky Oskin, LiveScience Staff Writer:

The world's largest volcano lurks beneath the Pacific Ocean, researchers announced today (Sept. 5) in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Called the Tamu Massif, the enormous mound dwarfs the previous record holder, Hawaii's Mauna Loa, and is only 25 percent smaller than Olympus Mons on Mars, the biggest volcano in Earth's solar system, said William Sager, lead study author and a geologist at the University of Houston.

"We think this is a class of volcano that hasn't been recognized before," Sager said. "The slopes are very shallow. If you were standing on this thing, you would have a difficult time telling which way was downhill."

Tamu is 400 miles (650 kilometers) wide but only about 2.5 miles (4 km) tall. It erupted for a few million years during the early Cretaceous period, about 144 million years ago, and has been extinct since then, the researchers report. [50 Amazing Volcano Facts]

A 3D map of Tamu Massif, the world's biggest volcano. (Click image for larger version.)

Like other massive volcanoes, Tamu Massif seems to have a central cone that spewed lava down its broad, gentle slopes. The evidence comes from seismic surveys and lava samples painstakingly collected over several years of surveys by research ships. The seismic waves show lava flows dipping away from the summit of the volcano. There appears to be a series of calderas at the summit, similar in shape to the elongated and merged craters atop Mauna Loa, Sager said.

Until now, geologists thought Tamu Massif was simply part of an oceanic plateau called Shatsky Rise in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Oceanic plateaus are massive piles of lava whose origins are still a matter of active scientific debate. Some researchers think plumes of magma from deep in the mantle punch through the crust, flooding the surface with lava. Others suggest pre-existing weaknesses in the crust, such as tectonic-plate boundaries, provide passageways for magma from the mantle, the layer beneath the crust. Shatsky Rise formed atop a triple junction, where three plates pulled apart.

Tamu Massif on Shatsky Rise in the northwest Pacific Ocean, compared in size to Olympus Mons on Mars. (Click image for larger version.)

Tamu Massif's new status as a single volcano could help constrain models of how oceanic plateaus form, Sager said. "For anyone who wants to explain oceanic plateaus, we have new constraints," he told LiveScience. "They have to be able to explain this volcano forming in one spot and deliver this kind of magma supply in a short time."

Geochemist David Peate of the University of Iowa, who was not involved in the study, said he looks forward to new models explaining the pulses of magma that built Shatsky Rise. Tamu Massif is the biggest and oldest volcano, and the cones grow smaller and younger to the northeast of Tamu. Sager and his colleagues suggest that pulses of magma created the volcanic trail.

"It seems that in many oceanic plateaus the melting is continuous, but here you have a big shield volcano," Peate told LiveScience. "Understanding the source of the volume of that magma, the rate of production of the magma and the time interval between those pulses will help give better constraints to feed into those models," he said.

Sager said other, bigger volcanoes could be awaiting discovery at other oceanic plateaus, such as Ontong Java Plateau, located north of the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean. "Structures that are under the ocean are really hard to study," he said.

Oceanic plateaus are the biggest piles of lava on Earth. The outpourings have been linked to mass extinctions and climate change. The volume of Tamu Massif alone is about 600,000 cubic miles (2.5 million cubic km). The entire volcano is bigger than the British Isles or New Mexico.

Despite Tamu's huge size, the ship surveys showed little evidence the volcano's top ever poked above the sea. The world's biggest volcano has been hidden because it sits on thin oceanic crust (or lithosphere), which can't support its weight. Its top is about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters) below the ocean surface today.

"In the case of Shatsky Rise, it formed on virtually zero thickness lithosphere, so it's in isostatic balance," Sager said. "It's basically floating all the time, so the bulk of Tamu Massif is down in the mantle. The Hawaiian volcanoes erupted onto thick lithosphere, so it's like they have a raft to hold on to. They get up on top and push it down. And with Olympus Mons, it's like it formed on a two-by-four."

Sager and his colleagues have studied Shatsky Rise for decades, seeking to solve the puzzle of oceanic plateaus. About 20 years ago, they named Tamu Massif after Texas A&M University, Sager's former employer, he said.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tamu Massif, Earth's Largest Volcano, Lurks Beneath Pacific Ocean

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How Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds celebrated their first wedding anniversary

It was a special day for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds as the couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary on Sept. 9.

According to People, the Reynolds toasted to their marriage down South, where they tied the knot last year. They were spotted in Charleston, S.C., over the weekend before moving on to Savannah, Ga., where they enjoyed a lunch date at Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room.

The owner of the restaurant, Marcia Thompson, tells People that Lively, 26, and Reynolds, 36, "were absolutely darling."

"I asked them what they were doing in Savannah, and she said it was their anniversary and they had never been able to get in the restaurant before. The line wasn't too terribly long today," Thompson explained, adding that the pair sat with six other restaurant-goers and noshed on a family-style meal of fried chicken, homemade biscuits, macaroni and cheese, cabbage, meatloaf and butter beans.

"Nobody made a fuss over them," Thompson continued. "I know the other people sitting at the table knew who they were, but they didn't say anything to them about who they were and that was nice. I thanked [the other diners] for that."

Reynolds reportedly paid cash for the meal and left a generous tip before escorting his lovely bride out of the eatery..

Lively and Reynolds met on the set of "Green Lantern" and began dating in 2011. They tied the knot at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, S.C., and currently live a very private life in Bedford, N.Y.

Blake Lively And Ryan Reynolds Celebrate First Wedding Anniversary

It was a special day for Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds as the couple...

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After the Supreme Court's historic ruling on gay marriage, it seemed like all the proudly homophobic Christians came out of the woodwork to talk about how much they still hate gay people. As a straight Jew, the homophobia amongst Jesus's followers has always struck me as a bit of a surprise: Worshipping at the feet of a ripped, hung man, seems at least a little homoerotic. But it's Jesus himself who lights up my gaydar like a Christmas tree. He's a skinny young otter-like guy, flocked by a mess of dudes, telling everyone to love and care about each other, who later gets the shit beaten out of him by a bunch of closed-minded conservatives who are terrified of change.

As it turns out, this is not a unique theory. Dr. Reverend Bob Shore-Goss, an openly gay senior pastor, has written several books on the subject, including Queering Christ and Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto. He holds a doctorate degree in Comparative Religion from Harvard, and he serves on the National Advisory Board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion. Oh, and he believes that Jesus was gay. I got in touch with Reverend Goss, who laid out the Biblical evidence and explained how his theory plays out.

Bob Shore-Goss: I would hope he is. I would project that he is. For my own spirituality, I would love to jump into bed with Jesus. At the very least, Jesus was queer. That is to say: He broke the rules of his culture, of heteronormativity. He subverted masculinities and gender codes in his culture. Queer doesn't necessarily mean sexual orientation, but it can include that. St. Paul, I would say, would probably be described as a closeted homosexual today, but they didn't have those words at the time.

How was homosexuality perceived in Jesus's time?

There was no concept of sexual orientation, but there was a concept of gender. So, in the Bible, when a man sleeps with another man like with a woman, it's an abomination. See, the emphasis is on a man betraying his status: He has feminized himself. So it's a gender violation as opposed to a sexual violation. The code of masculinity is very strong in the ancient world. Now, homoerotic relationships in the ancient world are really common, especially in the Greek and Roman worlds.

As a matter of fact, one of Jesus's miracles is the healing the Centurion's boy. It's in Matthew and Luke. Matthew uses the word "pais"—you get the word pederasty from it, it means youth—to describe this boy, who is essentially a concubine to the Centurian. It's an erotic relationship. He comes to Jesus and asks for his boy to be healed. And Jesus asks if he should heal him, and he says, "I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof, but say the word and my boy will be healed." Jesus says about the faith of the Centurion, who is in a homoerotic relationship, that "there is no greater faith than I've encountered in Israel."

What's great about that is that every time you go to communion on Sunday, millions of Catholics say, "Lord, I'm not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed." They're uttering this homoerotic phrase that was uttered by a Centurion in an actual homosexual relationship with a youth. We've just sanitized that and forgotten those sort of things in the meantime. But a church of the second century would understand that this is a homosexual relationship and it wasn't a big deal.

So what evidence is there in the bible of Jesus's homosexuality?

There's hints of it, and then there's readings into it. The hints come from John's Gospel with the "beloved disciple." He and Jesus have an intimate relationship, although there are questions as to who the disciple actually is. Anyhow, the beloved disciple is lying on the chest of Jesus at the last supper and is supposedly in his "inner tunic," which is what we would call underwear today. It's a very intimate gesture, and it's a special gesture of affection between the two.

I would imagine Jesus loved all of his disciples, I mean he told everyone to love their neighbor. So, singling out a particular person as "beloved" seems significant.

Yes. Jesus only calls one other person beloved and it is Lazarus. There was also an excerpt that was discovered in the 1960s by a professor of history and ancient studies, Morton Smith, a very good scholar. He found an inscription that hints at a secret gospel, that people are dating back to sometime in the late part of the first century. There is a fragment that describes a naked boy who comes to Jesus very late, and spends the night for an "initiation." The fragment has been disputed, of course. But what this has to say is that there was some sort of homoerotic relationship, a love relationship.

It seems that, like anything else in the Bible, you can draw your own conclusions, including that Jesus was gay. I mean, he's this queer figure, never married

That is actually significant. Jesus was a rabbi, a teacher, and pretty much every rabbi at the time was married. But there's no testimony of Jesus's marriage. There are some interesting theories, Jesus could have been bisexual and carried on a relationship with Mary Magdalene and the beloved disciple. Perhaps he was intersex or trans, because he was born without a father, and therefore was born female and took on the phenotype of a male. Virginia Mollenkott argues that in her book, Omnigender. It's a fun sort of argument. What I'm saying is that people see this as really important. I once had a lesbian student tell me, "Jesus wasn't gay, he was perfect." So what does that say about how she views her sexuality? The Catholic position says that Jesus is perfect, so therefore he is intrinsically good and intrinsically ordered. Now what they say about gays is we are intrinsically evil and intrinsically disordered. Even evangelicals will say that Jesus was perfect so that, in order to be saved for evangelicals, you must be heterosexual to be saved.

But if Jesus was gay, and he was perfect, then really it's only the gay people that are going to heaven, right? That's so deliciously ironic.

You know, I think there's a greater picture about how universal Jesus is. Jesus had sexuality. I used to think that everything about Jesus was perfect. Then in my first year of school, I was reading a book by John A.T. Robinson, an Anglican bishop and New Testament scholar, The Human Face of God, and there was a little footnote there that really disturbed me. It said that Jesus farted. And I said, "Oh my god!" And then I thought, Well, OK. He was human. And that led to, "If he was also human, did he have an erection at night? Did he have a nocturnal emission? All males experience that." So that was kind of an eroding of my sort of Catholic fundamentals around Jesus. And I went the next step by saying, "Was Jesus sexual?" And then, "With whom?" Then I thought, "Does it really matter?" And I think it does.

If Jesus was fully human, he must have been fully erotic. That would mean that sexuality was a positive thing, because we need to reclaim the fact that sexuality is a great and good thing, whatever sexuality that you are. So, you see where I'm coming from? I want to say that all sexualities are an original blessing because we're made in the image of God.

What I'm getting from this the most is that Jesus, as a queer human individual, could at least relate to the struggle of gay men—feeling like outcasts, having violence perpetrated on them for their queerness, whatever it may be.

Yeah, I'd say that you're absolutely on solid ground with your statement.

Even if Jesus wasn't gay, I imagine he'd certainly feel more kinship with the minority of homosexuals than the heteronormative Christians who preach hate.

It's funny, because fundamentalists go back and misread these things and get hysterical about it because they do not understand the historical context. They misuse it and they misrepresent their own ideology. And often times they're vehement about it because they have so much internalized homophobia, which indicates to me that they have those same attractions to the same sex that they need to stamp them out in other people. Jesus was not a fundamentalist. He's not a literalist. He spoke in parables and metaphor and story.

According to one theologian, Jesus Christ was both a top and a bottom.

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On Aug. 10, when the moon turns full at 2:10 p.m. EDT, skywatchers will be treated to the sight of a so-called "supermoon" -- and it will be the largest supermoon of the year.

The phenomenon -- any full moon that coincides with the time in the moon's orbit when it's closest to Earth -- should be visible on Sunday night after sunset.

Head over to the U.S. Naval Observatory's website to check local times for the supermoon in your area.

In comparison to other full moons, supermoons can be up to 14 percent closer and 30 percent brighter, according to NASA. In addition, the August 2014 supermoon will become full during the same hour that the moon comes closest to the Earth (lunar perigee), meaning it will outshine other full moons that have fallen on the same day as the lunar perigee.

Send us your supermoon photos this weekend! You can tweet your photos with hashtag #HuffPostSupermoon. Or, you can submit them directly to our "Supermoon 2014" slideshow, which will be featured in our supermoon live blog on the evening of Sunday, Aug. 10. We'll be collecting user photos from all over, and yours may be featured!

The August supermoon may also pair nicely with the Perseid meteor shower, which should be visible this weekend when Earth passes through the debris zone left by Comet Swift–Tuttle. The Perseids, which may offer skywatchers a view of 100 shooting stars per hour, will peak between Aug. 10 and Aug. 13.

This year was an exceptional one for supermoons, with three appearing in a row --one each in July, August and September. The next supermoon will fall on September 9, 2014.

Supermoon On August 10 Will Be Biggest Of 2014

There's going to be an extra-special moon this weekend.

On Aug. 10, when the

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This will be the most disruptive technology over the next 5 years

Miguel Chateloin (L) and Lazaro Gamio (R) use their computers to write code that would allow people living in Cuba to use email to post to blogs during the Hackathon for Cuba event on Febr. 1, 2014 in Miami. Joe Raedle—Getty Images

Robotics, self-driving cars, drones, sensors, wearables and so on are just a handful of the technologies that could change our world over the next five years. But Ben Bajarin, partner at Creative Strategies and Tech.pinions co-founder, believes it will be an older innovation that will be the most disruptive over the next half-decade: The Internet.

Speaking on a panel at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada last week, Bajarin said that more people will come online for the first time over the next five to 10 years than ever before will have disruptive global implications.

Bajarin pointed out, for example, that while the Arab Spring was clearly an important event, it could just be a precursor to more technology-enabled social change if people in repressed countries get more access to information via the Internet. And Internet-connected smartphones could help people conduct commerce and run their businesses, potentially increasing their earning ability.

His comments are based on research we've been doing at Creative Strategies as we forecast the longer-range demand for smartphones. More than 2 billion cellphones will be sold in 2015, with about 1.5 billion of them smartphones. However, thanks to lowering prices, nearly all cellphones sold will be smartphones by 2018. At the same time, new wireless infrastructure being built in developing countries is opening the door for an increasing number of people to get online via the mobile Internet. If those people get access to low-cost smartphones, it could have major political, economic and educational ramifications few of us realize is possible.

The 15 Most Bizarre Moments From the Consumer Electronics Show VIEW GALLERY | 15 PHOTOS A brand ambassador tests Samsung's Gear VR headset at the Samsung Galaxy booth on Jan. 6, 2015. Jae C. Hong—AP A brand ambassador tests Samsung's Gear VR headset at the Samsung Galaxy booth on Jan. 6, 2015.

When smartphones get the next two billion people online, it will be like what the Gutenberg Press and the Bible were to the masses in the Middle Ages. Before the printing press, all knowledge was in the hands of a select few who controlled the flow of information — and so was the power.

Today, it's hard to believe that kind of information control still exists, but all one has to do to find it is look to North Korea. North Korea's rulers keep knowledge from the masses, lording their authority over the people. Imagine what might happen if North Koreans got access to a smartphone and, with it, broad access to information.

The breakup of the Soviet Union proves that access to technology can accelerate social change. Back in 1973, I went to Moscow with a group of protesters to demonstrate against the country's lack of religious freedom. We were arrested and kept completely away from Russians so we couldn't give them any outside information. More than a decade later, I was in Hanover, Germany, meeting with a clandestine group smuggling fax machines into Russia. Five years after the Soviet Union broke apart, I met former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who said those fax machines and other technologies helped bring about the end of the USSR.

Of course, repressive leaders could block Internet access and bar technology from crossing their countries' borders, as we've seen them do time and time again. But even in these regions, technology is often smuggled in. Over time, I expect these borders will become even more data-porous, thanks to tools like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that can help users evade government firewalls. As more people in repressive countries get access to data from the outside, their knowledge base will expand. The impact on their lives could be dramatic.

See Steve Jobs’ Legacy in 16 Photos VIEW GALLERY | 16 PHOTOS 1976 Apple I was Apple's first computer, which became obsolete within a year. Today, they are auctioned off as collector's items. Justin Sullivan—Getty Images 1976 Apple I was Apple's first computer, which became obsolete within a year. Today, they are auctioned off as collecto ...

This Will Be the Most Disruptive Technology Over the Next 5 Years

The Internet continues to be the most disruptive innovation of our time.


University rocked by sexual harassment scandal

The University of Colorado Boulder released a damning report Friday revealing rampant sexual harassment and bullying in the university's department of philosophy. The scandal has already led to the removal of the department chairman and a suspension within the department of all graduate student admissions until 2015.

The review, conducted at the request of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Women, was designed to take a close look at the "climate for women in the department." Based on the allegations outlined in the report, the climate did not appear to be healthy.

Although the report notes that faculty and graduate students were "pleased with the academic quality" of the philosophy department, the investigation found an environment "with unacceptable sexual harassment, inappropriate sexualized unprofessional behavior, and divisive uncivil behavior" which has resulted in female faculty "avoiding the workplace and opportunities to socialize with colleagues and in their leaving or 'trying to leave' in disproportionate numbers."

One of multiple findings detailed a general "lack of boundaries/professionalism" that existed between some faculty and graduate students in the department explaining that "many of the incidents of alleged sexual harassment and and assault" occurred after hours in bars and involved "excessive drinking" when students and faculty would socialize. There was also an "inappropriate expectation" that graduate students and faculty must socialize together in the evenings.

Another finding from the investigation -- the alleged bullying in the department -- could not be described in the report because the committee believed that any detail about the bullying instances would reveal who the perpetrators were, but did state that those who were allegedly engaged in bullying behavior "are largely unaware that they are perceived as bullies."

The report described a philosophy department so unprofessional that it was harmful not only to women, but "every stakeholder group" -- and one that was also teaching "graduate students inappropriate methods for handling harmful or unprofessional behavior among students."

Department chairman Graeme Forbes was removed from his position; however further disciplinary action, if any, against other faculty members was not revealed by CU officials, The Boulder Daily Camera first reported.

Forbes had been chairman since 2010 and will remain a professor in the department.

On Friday, CU officials informed faculty and graduate students in the philosophy department that Professor Andrew Cowell, chair of CU's department of linguistics, was replacing Forbes as the philosophy department chair.

"The findings in the report are deeply disturbing to the faculty in the department, and there is a clear recognition that problems exist," Cowell said in an email to The Huffington Post. "A large majority of the faculty are highly professional individuals very devoted to quality teaching, research and service. As External Chair, I have already talked one-on-one to many of the faculty in detail, and I am convinced that they are fully committed to addressing the issues raised in the report in order to create a more positive environment for all students and members of the department."

Beyond the removal of Forbes and suspension of graduate admissions, the report made many recommendations for changes in culture and practice and added that the "recovery processes be both rigorous and guided." The committee outlined several next steps that must be taken, including a review of all procedures related to the management of graduate students to ensure the department is safe and "family friendly" for all, as well as the enacting of new processes to "transform [the department] to one of openness, mutual support and collegiality."

"I want to make it clear that we cannot allow patterns of misconduct and breaches of integrity to go unchecked," CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano said in a statement following the report's findings. "We have made these changes based upon the recommendations of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Women Site Visit Program, as well as on evidence gathered from faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students in the department.. That evidence points directly to the need to create a stronger, more inclusive environment in the department for women as scholars and students, that prevents acts of sexual harassment and discrimination, and that allows faculty to work together in a collegial environment of mutual respect."

Sexual Harassment Report Rocks University Of Colorado Boulder Philosophy Department

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O.J. Simpson Just Got Some Terrible News That’s Going To Make His Jail Time Much More Painful

While While O.J. Simpson is serving time in Nevada’s Lovelock Correctional Facility, he has constantly been complaining to friends about how his female fans stopped sending the former football star money.

Simpson has been using the fan money to purchase goods at the prison commissary and probably paying for a body guard to keep prison bullies away. Without the cash, he might lose his much-needed protection.

Since the letters with money from a handful of fans have been steadily on the decline, Simpson has turned to other sources to fund his prison life.

"O.J. has called friends begging for money to be deposited into his commissary account," a source told RadarOnline.com.

"His family is responsible for replenishing the commissary account, but it’s not a huge priority for his kids," the source said. "And O.J. just isn’t getting the letters and money from women anymore. He needs that money because he also uses it to keep other inmates happy and off his back."

Simpson is serving a 33-year sentence after being found guilty to 10 charges in connection with a robbery in 2007.

Besides his lack of money, Simpson has had a difficult time in prison so far. In March, another inmate allegedly threw Simpson against a wall after he tried to cut in line to get his medication.

"He found the biggest guy who is in great shape and willing to fend off the bullies to help OJ out–but, of course, it comes at a price," a source told the Daily Mail.

If O.J. doesn’t have the money, what will he use to pay his inmate bodyguard?

LockerDome helps you personalize the web.


Legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder is using Twitter in the best/worst way

Though all of the social media platforms are pretty similar, each one has its own unique purpose. Facebook is for ignoring your family members or high school friends when they share political opinions or tired memes, Instagram is for showing how great you are and how great your life is, and Twitter is about shameless self-promotion—whether you’re promoting your work, your bad attempts at jokes, or your "personal brand." The expert Twitter users disguise this as its own kind of content, making the self-promotion just as entertaining as the thing they want you to pay attention to, so you end up buying tickets to their movie or checking out their blog without even realizing that you’re still laughing at some great zinger or weeping over a particularly feels-worthy confession.

Legendary Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder—a guy who probably had a hand in creating a lot of your favorite stuff from the show—is officially on Twitter now, and despite his impressive body of work, he is not one of these expert Twitter users. He’s just a guy promoting his books:

The liquor I was drinking was making me smarter all the time. - "The Million Dollar Policeman." https://t.co/8lT2fD6FUf — John Swartzwelder (@JJSwartzwelder) July 27, 2016

"Unsinkability is what boat passengers want most." "What came in second?" "Food." - "The Monster That Wouldn’t Sink"https://t.co/sYkylZB1Qs — John Swartzwelder (@JJSwartzwelder) July 28, 2016

Granted, those lines are pretty great, but it’s not quite as fun as getting 140 characters of new Swartzwelder humor would be. Then again, maybe this is just the ultimate form of Swartzwelder humor. Maybe he’s not an expert Twitter user, he’s the expert Twitter user. Think about it: These quotes are all solid examples of his dry sense of humor, and what’s dryer than subverting people’s expectations by refusing to give them actual funny tweets when you’ve got a bunch of detective novels you can just pull quotes from?

The good news was that this all might be just a dream. The bad news was that of course it wasn’t. - "The Exploding Detective" — John Swartzwelder (@JJSwartzwelder) July 28, 2016

I’m not the kind of person who gives up right away, but after a week I do. A week’s a long time. - "Detective Made Easy" — John Swartzwelder (@JJSwartzwelder) July 30, 2016

Those lines are brilliant. This is like the comedy writer equivalent of Kim Kardashian posting nothing but tweets that say "buy the thing I’m holding in this picture." He’s not just tweeting, he’s doing performance art.

"Who said money can’t buy happiness?"..."Zeke said that."... "Better keep your mouth shut from now on." - "Double Wonderful" — John Swartzwelder (@JJSwartzwelder) July 26, 2016

Submit your Great Job, Internet tips here.


Glencairn keeper reacts to his 'unbelievable' last dance video that went viral

A Rutherglen Glencairn footballer who had the GBX remix of ‘Bits n’ Pieces’ as his last dance song described the moment it went viral as unbelievable.

Newly-weds JC (John-Charles) and Emma Hutchison tied the knot at the Radstone Hotel on Saturday, June 18 and decided they wanted to ditch wedding traditions and include something that their guests would never forget.

The 31-year-old Glencairn goalie, who has had stints at Clyde, Hibernian and Falkirk in his career, watched their video claim over 396,000 views.

He said: "I just couldn’t believe that so many people had watched it..

"I had put the video on Facebook on Sunday after we got married on the Saturday. On the Monday I woke up and my phone was going mental with people telling me how many folk had watched it. It’s just unbelievable.

"It was actually one of my teammates, Brian Eadie, who filmed it."

The couple, who have been together for seven years, kept their song choice under wraps and even had their band start off by playing something else to add to the surprise.

JC added: "Me and my wife decided we’d do something a wee bit different because weddings are always quite emotional. So we told the band to start off with something traditional and then they went into ‘Bits n’ Pieces’ so no-one was expecting it. It’s our favourite song.

"It was a brilliant day, the best day ever."

The video put online by JC on June 19, surprised the couple with the response it received but not the ‘keeper’s gaffer.

Glencairn manager Willie Harvey didn’t make the wedding due to work commitments but watched the video back the next day.

He said: "It’s apparently went viral. I’m not surprised, JC is quite a character but you need that in the dressing room."

JC is one of several players from Rutherglen Glencairn’s squad last season who have signed with the club for another year.

Commenting on the wedding day, his wife Emma added: "We wanted it to be remembered by all of our guests and it’s our favourite song, so it made sense to do it.

"Everyone thought it was going to be a song from Runrig. It turned out to be a huge hit with everyone, after all it’s a song that everyone loves to dance to.

"Never for a second did we think it would go viral. We still can’t believe it."

Rutherglen Glencairn 'keeper reacts to his 'unbelievable' last dance wedding video that went viral

THE Glens' shot-stopper JC (John-Charles) Hutchison and his wife Emma have seen their video claim more than 396,000 views.

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I've never smoked pot. Here's what happened when I tried to get it legally in D.C.

WASHINGTON -- This might be as good a time as any to share that I have never tried pot. This makes me less cool than pretty much everyone on the planet, including President Barack Obama, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), writer Cat Marnell and you, probably. I would claim my inexperience is part of my straight-edge, Ian MacKaye ethos, but I drink bourbon, so who am I kidding?

I've had the opportunity to try pot illegally approximately 853 times, including, but not limited to: at a hotel room in Reno during a high school orchestra trip, in a van parked outside of a dinosaur museum in Montana at 2 a.m., on the Great Ocean Road in Australia and as part of a delicious bowl of cookie dough in a Rockville warehouse. Moreover, obtaining weed illegally in Washington, D.C., isn't exactly a feat. As one libertarian told me recently, "You order pizza, they bring pot with your pizza."

But what’s the fun in illegal weed? (Rhetorical question.) I wanted the holy grail: Legal weed. After the District's law legalizing possession of limited quantities of marijuana went into effect last week, I decided that attending the ComfyTree Cannabis Convention with my colleague Ryan J. Reilly, who reported on the first major cannabis industry convention in Colorado last summer, would be the perfect opportunity to get some advice on finding it.

Marijuana enthusiasts and budding entrepreneurs convened at a hotel just down the street from the U.S. Capitol this past weekend to explore business opportunities and swap advice about the new law.. As attendees mingled in a convention room filled with bongs, vaporizers, pot-themed swag and the distinct smell of cannabis, many expressed confusion over how the marijuana business would fare in the District of Columbia.

In November, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that allows adults over 21 to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants on their own. But the law is silent on how those folks might go about obtaining it.

Washington is in this unorthodox political position because Congress still has say over the city's laws and attempted to block the initiative in the federal spending bill passed in December. House Republicans have also warned D.C.'s mayor against moving forward with implementation of legalization. This congressional intervention could stall further local plans for addressing sales and taxation of marijuana.

In other words, I now live in a city that has legalized marijuana without creating any obvious method for residents to legally buy it, outside of obtaining it from medical dispensaries. Joseph Heller is laughing at me.

Nobody at the convention was selling weed, but they were selling plenty of products you could use with pot. Attendees milled around booths offering marijuana testing products, air filters, grow lights and the latest in vaporizer technology. Speakers also discussed the pot business at a number of sessions. But questions about the law, ranging from carding for paraphernalia to selling cannabis-infused massage oils, bedeviled conferencegoers.

"It’s kind of the Wild West, nobody really knows what’s really going on," said Abe Garcia, co-founder of Workhorse, a design agency that is looking to get involved in the cannabis market.

I zeroed in on Rico Valderrama, 38, who was wearing hipster glasses and a baseball cap depicting a guy smoking on a bicycle. People kept coming by to shake his hand and check out swag from his clothing company. Rico was semi-popular in high school, for sure.

Valderrama assured me that he is "very much a stoner," despite his four years of service in the Marine Corps. ("Semper Fi!" he told a passerby.) He told me he is known as "Phone Homie," because one time, "I was smoking some blunts, I rolled up a really big one, seven, eight grams of weed with a bunch of hash in it, the joke was I chopped off ET's finger, I'm smoking ET's finger."

"By the end you're in a different state of mind," he continued. "There came in ‘Phone Homie’ through a cloud of smoke. Phone ET, Phone Home, Phone Home-iee."

I asked Rico, my new spirit guide, how to go about obtaining legal weed. "I would say in the next three or four months, people are going to come out with their grows, and there’s a free trade system," he said. "Let’s say you don’t have something to trade, I’m pretty sure you could work it out with a service or something like that, as long as there’s no cash involved."

He also advised me to be in a "nice safe setting" and not to "operate big bulldozers" when I finally did try pot for the first time.

Emboldened, I went to talk to Wayne Saunders, a D.C. resident who had a fancy Willy Wonka machine on his table for assessing the potency of marijuana. Saunders said testing marijuana for quality control was his professional passion. "Do you guys have a shop?" I asked, hoping to avoid a Maureen Dowd-style meltdown. Not yet, Saunders told me. "My partner here has been working with this machine for two years on Rhode Island," he added.

I confided to Saunders that I had never smoked pot. "Wow," he said, and then advised me to get a medical marijuana card.

I briefly considered the possibility of growing my own marijuana, but my black thumb would likely doom the effort. Jacob Asbell, 27, is the co-owner of Hydro-City, a company recently formed to sell and rent hydroponic kits to D.C. residents who are interested in growing their own product at home. He said that his company could provide pretty much everything a resident needs to grow their own marijuana plants, except for one crucial component: seeds.

"As a commercial entity, we can’t really have anything to do with the distribution of seeds, so you will have to find a friend to give it to you," Asbell said. (I can’t even get my friends to give me nachos.)

I consulted with Jim Bergan, a Virginia resident who recently started a blog, "Weed Be Better Off," to promote marijuana knowledge. Bergan told me to start my weed adventure with a "well-educated dispensary." But where would I find that?

"I don’t think there’s anywhere to get it legally currently in D.C.," he said. "That’s still the grey area."

That’s when I came across Rico Joran Stringfellow, 23, the assistant manager at The Noon, a smoking shop in Silver Spring. His table offered "pipes, water pipes, oil rigs, vaporizers [and] grinders," none of which I knew how to use. Asked whether business has gone up since the law changed, he said, "Hell yeah!" Stringfellow added that he found the new regulations "quite liberating -- it's letting everyone kind of come out of their shell."

I asked Stringfellow how he thought I might be able to obtain pot legally. He peered out the door. "We could probably smoke somewhere around here," he said, laughing. "Right now the law is you can gift up to an an ounce." It wasn't clear whether this was an offer or a statement of legal fact.

We determined that we couldn’t actually smoke in the Holiday Inn conference area, since the law prohibits smoking on public property and anywhere open to the public. Also, there were a lot of children in the lobby. Not cool.

So, I headed home from the convention on that dreary February day with only a few promotional rolling papers to show for my efforts. Until the District's law plays out, I will continue to hold onto my loser status.

I've Never Smoked Pot. Here's What Happened When I Tried To Get It Legally In D.C.

WASHINGTON -- This might be as good a time as any to share that I have never tried pot. This makes me less cool than pretty much everyone on the planet, ...

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Astronomers tally HOW MANY alien worlds beyond our solar system?

Four of the five main databases that catalog the discoveries of exoplanets now list more than 900 confirmed alien worlds, and two of them peg the tally at 986 as of Sept. 26. So the 1,000th exoplanet may be announced in a matter of days or weeks, depending on which list you prefer.

That's a lot of progress since 1992, when researchers detected two planets orbiting a rotating neutron star, or pulsar, about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Confirmation of the first alien world circling a "normal" star like our sun did not come until 1995. [The Strangest Alien Planets (Gallery)]

And the discoveries will keep pouring in, as astronomers continue to hone their techniques and sift through the data returned by instruments on the ground and in space.

The biggest numbers in the near future should come from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which racked up many finds before being hobbled in May of this year when the second of its four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed.

Kepler has identified 3,588 planet candidates to date. Just 151 of these worlds have been confirmed so far, but mission scientists have said they expect at least 90 percent will end up being the real deal.

But even these numbers, as impressive as they are, represent just the tip of our Milky Way galaxy's immense planetary iceberg. Kepler studied a tiny patch of sky, after all, and it only spotted planets that happened to cross their stars' faces from the instrument's perspective.

Many more planets are thus out there, zipping undetected around their parent stars. Indeed, a team of researchers estimated last year that every Milky Way star hosts, on average, 1.6 worlds — meaning that our galaxy perhaps harbors 160 billion planets.

And those are just the worlds with obvious parent stars. In 2011, a different research team calculated that "rogue planets" (which cruise through space unbound to a star) may outnumber "normal" exoplanets by 50 percent or so.

This artist's illustration represents the variety of planets being detected by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Scientists now say that one in six stars hosts an Earth-size planet.

Nailing down the numbers is of obvious interest, but what astronomers really want is a better understanding of the nature and diversity of alien worlds.

And it's becoming more and more apparent that this diversity is stunning. Scientists have found exoplanets as light and airy as Styrofoam, for example, and others as dense as iron. They've also discovered a number of worlds that appear to orbit in their stars' habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could support the existence of liquid water and thus, perhaps, life as we know it.

But the search continues for possibly the biggest exoplanet prize: the first true alien Earth. Kepler was designed to determine how frequently Earth-like exoplanets occur throughout the Milky Way, and mission scientists have expressed confidence that they can still achieve that primary goal. So some Earth analogs likely lurk in Kepler's data, just waiting to be pulled out.

The five chief exoplanet-discovery databases, and their current tallies, are: the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia (986); the Exoplanets Catalog, run by the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo's Planetary Habitability Laboratory (986); the NASA Exoplanet Archive (905); the Exoplanet Orbit Database (732); and the Open Exoplanet Catalog (948).

The Planetary Habitability Lab keeps track of all five databases, whose different numbers highlight the uncertainties involved in exoplanet detection and confirmation.

Number Of Alien Planets Confirmed Beyond Our Solar System Nears 1,000, Data Shows

Just two decades after discovering the first world beyond our solar system, astronomers are closing in on alien planet No. 1,000.  Four of the...

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Make Cheap Beer Taste Better ... With Science

Open the fridge, grab a frosty one, pop off the cap and enjoy. That’s the ritual performed countless times a day by us beer drinkers. And we’re all doing it wrong.

At least, that’s what Philip Petracca, co-founder of New Hampshire-based Fizzics, believes. His company’s mission is to give every one of us the "perfect pour." How? With a home beer tap machine that uses science to improve the drinking experience, regardless of the brand. The secret to making any beer taste better is in getting a better head, Petracca claims. Beer in cans, bottles or barrels contains a lot of dissolved CO2 under pressure, he says, and when improperly handled it can cause bubbles and foam to overflow or improperly foam.

So, if the bubbles are too big — a common result of a hand-pour — our mouths perceive a "grainy" feel, which can lead many a beer drinker to avoid pouring heads altogether. But that’s a mistake, according to Petracca. Not only does the head insulate the rest of the beer from flavor-robbing oxygen (even a few minutes of air exposure can degrade the taste), but it can also help seal in the gases that give beer its effervescence, something that likewise maximizes flavor.

... produces a head with small, perfectly formed bubbles, which delivers a creamy mouthfeel — like a draft.

The Fizzics machine, which is about the size of a small kitchen appliance, produces a head with small, perfectly formed bubbles, which delivers a creamy mouthfeel — like a draft. Here’s how it works. Place a bottle, can or growler (a reusable container for transporting draft beer) — the Fizzics machine doesn’t care — inside its sealed chamber. Pull forward on the silver tap handle to pressurize the chamber, which forces the beer out of its original container and into your glass via a small plastic tube. The magic happens toward the end of the pour, when you push the tap handle backward. This action kick-starts the patented agitation process, which turns the remaining drops of liquid into an ultra-smooth head, using sound waves. There are no gas cylinders or other consumables needed — just four AA batteries.

Steve Abrams, co-founder of Canada’s Mill Street Brewery, agrees a good beer head improves the taste of a brew considerably, noting that in Europe, bartenders will often take extra time to "layer" your beer as it’s poured. Though he hasn’t tried the Fizzics, Abrams has encountered "lots of beer gadgets," even one that lets you pour a beer with your mind. He says the Fizzics could indeed improve a beer’s taste, as long as it’s served cold. But some might find the selling price of $150 (they start shipping in October) a bit steep. Petracca defends the cost, pointing out that when compared to a night at a bar, "it’s not expensive at all, if experiences and social connections are important."

Perhaps it’s a nice idea for a gift, but Abrams points out that "pouring beer into a glass is not rocket science," and offers up this video for those who need a quick 101 on the technique. Rocket science or not, the Fizzics would certainly make a good conversation piece. To that, we say, "Cheers!"

A portable gadget wants to improve your at-home drinking experience.


Some people buy cars and only need them to perform specific tasks, but for a lot of people, cars need to be good all-around vehicles. We can nitpick its opinions on specific models, but it’s hard to argue that Consumer Reports doesn’t provide the best information on how well-rounded cars are. Since it buys the cars it tests outright, its opinions are about as unbiased as car reviews come. For most shoppers, that kind of information is an important part of the car-buying process.

Each year, Consumer Reports compiles the road test scores and reliability ratings from each car in a brand’s lineup and gives that brand an overall score. It then ranks automakers to see which brands do the best and which do the worst. Some brands do exceptionally well in road tests but fall flat on reliability, but often, reliable cars perform poorly in road tests.

Which brands got the balance right, and which ones need some improvement? Here are the five best- and five worst-rated car brands in the U.S., according to Consumer Reports.

Subaru has a great reputation in the outdoor adventure community, and its vehicles are popular choices in areas with harsh winters, but all-wheel-drive isn’t the only thing Subaru is known for. Its predicted reliability score was very good, while its average road test score was a strong 80, giving it a 73 overall.

Like Subaru, Audi is also known for its all-wheel-drive technology. In recent years, it’s also received praise for its attractive designs and high-quality interiors. Its reliability has come up drastically in recent years, as well. When paired with a score of 81 on the road test, Audi just barely edges out Subaru with a score of 73 as well.

Toyota is known for reliability, but its cars have also been getting better to drive. That makes it a popular choice with both buyers and Consumer Reports. Its road test score is only a 72, but its well above-average reliability leads it to an overall score of 74.

Mazda might not be the most popular brand in the U.S., but anyone who is shopping for a car and doesn’t at least test drive a Mazda is missing out. Car enthusiasts love Mazdas, regular car buyers love Mazdas, and Consumer Reports loves Mazdas, too. It gets a road test score of 76, and with excellent reliability, it receives an overall score of 75.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lexus is at the top of this list. Not only did it receive the highest score for reliability, but its cars performed admirably in the road test, scoring a 76. Lexus has always made reliable cars, but in recent years, it’s focused on making cars that handle and perform better as well. That effort is paying off, giving Lexus a total score of 78.

Following the financial crisis, Ford did an amazing job of reinventing itself. It has launched new vehicles that look better, drive better, use less gasoline, and offer innovative technology. As a result, Ford has a strong road test score of 72. Unfortunately, reliability struggles are what hold Ford back, giving it an overall score of 53.

Dodge has focused on design and styling lately, and it’s certainly paid off for the brand. Cars like the Challenger and the Charger are about as cool as it gets, and Dodges drive pretty well, too. Consumer Reports gives the brand a respectable road test score of 71. Reliability is where Dodge falls short, though, and that drags its overall score down to a 52.

Minis, especially the two-door hardtop, are practical in the city, quirky, and incredibly fun to drive. Consumer Reports gives the lineup a 72 on the road test, but unfortunately, Mini reliability still scores very low. Owners sure love their Minis, but with reliability low enough to drag its total score down to a 46, owning one can be expensive.

Jeep is known for prioritizing rugged design and off-road ability over on-road refinement, and it’s a strategy that continues to pay off for the brand. Considering its bias toward making sure its vehicles are capable off-road instead of refined and quiet, it should come as no surprise that Jeep scored only a 59 in the road test. Like the rest of the FCA lineup though, reliability is Jeep’s biggest struggle, and its overall score only comes out to a 39.

For readers who are familiar with Consumer Reports’ ratings, it should come as no surprise that Fiat is at the bottom of the overall rankings. Despite how fun Fiats are to drive, they tend to be unrefined, and they don’t do well in Consumer Reports’ testing. Reliability is a huge concern, dragging a score of 55 on the road test down to a 32 overall.

5 Car Brands to Buy And 5 to Avoid From Consumer Reports


A dad's absolutely hilarious Facebook video chronicling his daughter's Christmas visit home from college has gone viral.

Dan Howard, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, posted the video, which features a day-by-day diary of the "joys" of having his daughter, Shannon, home for the holidays, according to the Portland Press Herald. Shannon is a student at High Point University in North Carolina.

The video, entitled "Day 5 of Having My College Kid Home – Merry Christmas," has received nearly five million views.

"I have like 50 Facebook friends so I'm amazed at how this thing's taken off," Howard told the paper. Howard - with some pitch-perfect comedic delivery - talks about how he had to carry his daughter's 150-pound suitcase through the airport, how she and her friends were baking at 3 a.m. and how his daughter has used the living room as her own personal luggage space. The video ends with a desperate plea by Howard to get his daughter back to college.

"I've called the airlines, bus terminals, trains — there's no way to get her back to college. Do you think Uber?" he says. Watch the video above, and share your stories on the "joys" of having a child home from college for the holidays.

Watch a Dad's Hysterical Video on the 'Joys' of Having His Daughter Home From College  Insider

A dad's Facebook video chronicling his daughter's Christmas visit home from college has gone viral.


Usain Bolt kept a secret from everyone and his feats at the Rio Olympics just became more impressive

Party animal, ladies man and world-class sprinter Usain Bolt's Olympic accomplishments this year may have been even more impressive than usual, considering what was going on behind his winning smile.

Bolt reportedly won his three gold medals at the Rio Games - and got more than a little friendly with some of the locals - while fighting off an infection caused by a massive, painful abscess in one of his teeth, according to the Brazilian newspaper Globo.

The nine-time gold medallist and fastest man in the world had the tooth treated while in the Olympic Village just a day before his departure, according to the report.

That means - while dealing with an issue many of us would have taken a week off from work to handle - Bolt defended his crowns in the men's 100m and 200m sprints and 4x100m relay.

If history is any indication, Bolt likely was not alone. According to a study conducted at the 2012 Olympics in London, athletes paid more than 1900 visits to the Olympic Village dentists. More than half had cavities, and 75 per cent had gum disease.

So, if you're sitting at your desk with a toothache today, maybe just be glad you don't have to go run a marathon as well.

Since completing his "triple triple", Bolt has been enjoying the London night-life, reportedly getting women to show their boobs by promising to let them fondle his gongs.

Earlier this week the triple Olympic champ invited clubbers to his hotel where some gave him and a pal a flash.

Usain Bolt's feats at the Rio Olympics just became more impressive

Party animal, ladies man and world-class sprinter Usain Bolt's Olympic accomplishments this year may have been even more impressive than usual, considering what was going on behind - New Zealand Herald


He stuck his tongue on a metal pole. Guess what happened

The student, whose name has not been released, apparently attempted to reenact a scene from the 1983 holiday classic, "A Christmas Story," Wednesday morning by sticking his tongue against the pole.

Just like in the film, the boy's tongue became adhered and couldn't be removed without help, WCVB-TV reported.

A rescue crew was called to White Brook Middle School and helped the tongue-stuck student get free by pouring hot water on the pole and the tongue, Time.com reported.

It took a couple of buckets of water to unstick the student. Teachers shielded the boy during the rescue mission while other students were arriving to class, Pix11.com reported.

EMTs evaluated the boy’s tongue, called his mother to reassure her that he was fine and then sent him off to class, according to GazetteNet.com.

Easthampton Fire Chief David A. Mottor said it was the second tongue-sticking he had seen in his 20-year career. The first involved a kid who licked a chain-link fence post.

"I wouldn’t recommend putting your tongue on anything metal for the rest of the winter," Mottor told the paper.

This isn't the first tongue-licking sticking of the year.

Last month, Maddie Gilmartin, 12, of East Kingston, N.H. decided on a whim to touch the flag pole with her tongue and she also got stuck, WMUR-TV reported.

She was able to get free with the help of warm water, but told the station her lips felt like like they had been stung by a lot of bees.

Kid Gets Tongue Stuck To Metal Pole A La 'A Christmas Story'

A middle school student in Easthampton, Mass., is feeling licked after getting his tongue stuck on a metal pole.

The student, whose name has not been ...

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If you’re lucky enough to get a cat’s attention, let alone his love and tolerance of your snuggles, you might get the chance to hear him purr. Veterinary scientists often ponder the specific message cats are sending when they purr. Is it more than just communicating happiness? Is it basically the feline version of a dog wagging its tail? Is it just a pointless instinctual response? It turns out that the meaning behind a powerful purr is more than just the cat’s equivalent to a human smile. Even more, it’s more complex than you would think.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "She’s purring so I guess it’s okay..."

I wouldn’t be so sure. A cat’s meow does not always signal happiness; in fact it could also be anxiety or discomfort that the cat is actually experiencing. Scientists believe that the purr could then be a representation of self-healing, a way for the cat to deal with stressful situations involving laser pointers and dangling strings that are just out of reach.

Ever try to reproduce a purring sound yourself? It’s hard for humans to mimic, since it involves a very unique and specialized oscillation of the laryngeal and diaphragmatic muscles surrounding the feline vocal cords. A cat’s purr is even unique to domestic cats, although bigger cats like cheetahs, pumas, and leopards do have their own version of communication through purring.

A cat’s purr falls between a frequency of 25 and 150 Hertz. Guess what! This is also the rate at which muscles and bones are best able to grow and conduct self-repair.. Our furry feline friends are on to something genius. Indeed, scientists believe this distinctive frequency is the result of a naturally-selected behavior that led to the evolution of purring kitties.

Purring is taught to kittens by their mothers as a lesson in communicating, in the same way that they are taught to meow.

There are also scientists who believe that a kitty purr could be an expression of hunger. There might even be a special purr the cat incorporates when he’s craving some kitty chow. This sound is also reminiscent of the murmur of human babies. These frisky felines are tapping into our human maternal and paternal instinctual behaviors!

Despite all the signs linking cat purring behavior to certain ulterior motives, some veterinarians just believe that the purr has almost no significant meaning.

"People will smile when they’re nervous, when they want something, and when they’re happy, so perhaps the purr can also be an appeasing gesture," Dr. Kelly Morgan from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Veterinary Medicine told WebMD.

Scientists can continue to speculate about the meaning of the feline purr, but unless cats develop the ability to perform human-like speech, it’ll probably always be a mystery. And that’s just the way the cats would like it to stay.

Cats are mysterious creature, so can scientists explain why they purr?