Confirmed: NASA Just Discovered Earth Has A New Moon

Solitude matters, and for some people, it’s the air they breathe

Susan Cain (via fyp-psychology)

Self Care: Sleep

How To Cope with Nightmares

How to Keep a Dream Journal

Making a Dream Journal

Sleep Meditation Music

Teas for Insomnia

Natural Sleep Remedies

Medication Interactions Checker (Make sure you’re okay to take sleep aids before doing so!)

DIY Bubblebath

Foods that can help/harm sleep

Cheap Pillows

Aromatherapy

Guided Meditation

Maria Fabrizio On Being Subtle

(Illustration for “How A Woman’s Plan To Kill Herself Helped Her Family Grieve”) 

Maria Fabrizio is an artist working out of Columbia, South Carolina. During the week she illustrates news headlines for her blog, Wordless News.

From mental health issues to how listening to music can speed up healing, Maria has transformed difficult-to-visualize health issues into provocative illustrations that balance sensitivity. As a visual producer for Shots, I often call Maria when we have a tough story that could benefit from a smart and emotional concept.

So I called her up to chat about it. Our discussion has been edited for clarity and length. 

Health issues can be particularly difficult to illustrate. How do you tease out ideas from challenging topics like mental health, aging, fertility—many of which are more internal?

A lot of times like that you can’t use photography because you don’t want to show an actual person. You want to make the concept broad enough so that people can reflect on it or put themselves in that position.

I like to start off with a metaphor. There was a piece earlier in the year on suicide and dementia, and deciding when the right time to go was. I thought of winter. And the feeling that winter is a time when things are dying. There’s also this bird flying away and this woman is letting it go. She’s making that decision. The timing was right. It’s hard to find the right level of sensitivity and abstractness so people can project onto topics that are difficult. 

(Top: Illustration for “If You Have Dementia, Can Hasten Death As You Wish?” Bottom: Illustration for “Women Want To Stay In The Game, But Life Intervenes”)

One of our favorite illustrations is the fireflies… what was the story behind that?

It was in the summer. I remember feeling like, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.” At the same time I got the assignment I had been reading this blog by Eric Meyer– he is a coder and internet guru. His daughter was dying of brain cancer. She was young, five years old, and I was reading this blog and reading the piece you sent and I was so depressed. I went out on my back porch. The fireflies were coming out super early. The piece you sent me was all about this woman being surrounded by her family before she decided to end her life.

That was the only sketch I sent for that one. And I just said, “I hope this works.”

You’ve talked before about the importance of subtlety. It made me think of this one you made for a story on drinking and where the line exists between having had just enough and too many. The woman’s body posture hints at what she’s thinking. I’m remembering that you reworked her posture to get it right.

Being subtle or being quiet, especially for something like decision-making, is crucial in getting that tension right. In this one, I drew her like 15 times. She’s looking down, her left foot is way off the glass but she also looks really relaxed. I wasn’t drinking when I made this, but I did try and get in the mindset—ok, what does it feel like when you’ve had a couple drinks and you’re relaxed and you’re like should I have another one? And I felt like the martini glass was the right level of fragile for the concept. It’s all very subtle.

Illustration for “Rethinking Alcohol: Can Heavy Drinkers Learn To Cut Back?”

All illustrations by Maria Fabrizio for NPR

Hulu’s newest cartoon is a lesbian fairytale for children — and its shattering conventions

Rosaline follows a young maiden on her trip through the woods to deliver a basket of treats to her sweetheart. It’s standard fairytale fare, in all ways but one: Rosaline’s sweetheart is a woman. The cartoon, which debuted in the midst of LGBT Pride Month, is the second queer love story brought to Hulu.

This Is What It’s Like To Dive Between Two Continents

Meet Galle- The Happy Face crater from mars.

Galle is a crater on Mars. It is located on the eastern rim of the huge impact basin Argyre Planitia in Argyre quadrangle. It is named after the astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. 

Galle is often known as the “happy face crater” because the illusion of a smiley is created by a curved mountain range in the southern part of the crater and two smaller mountain clusters further north. The formation was first photographed by Viking Orbiter 1.

Why did you see a smiley face? 

On the face of it, it was just a crater with a few mountain ranges ( no offence to Galle- the crater ), but i bet the moment you saw the photo you recognized the smiley face ! 

‘Mysterious’ isn’t it!!

It is due to a well known psychological phenomenon known as ‘Pareidoila.’ Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds and cars! and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse. 

Read more about Pareidolia here.

Image Credit : NASA.

Quick Facts: The Palestinian Nakba.

This is still—and may always be—the ultimate example of right-wing hypocrisy.

Meoww!