Life Hacks – Spoken Edition

You’ve probably just gotten used to paying your friends after a night out with a trip to your favorite friend payment app. Unfortunately for them, single-purpose payment apps like Venmo and Square might have some competition coming from their biggest threat: actual banks. Zelle isn’t exactly an iOS or Android app, but it’ll be on your phone before you know it.

Contrary to what you (or your trainer) might believe, endorphins aren’t responsibly for that giddy exuberance you feel after a long run. What is associated with the sought-after feeling is something that gets you actually high: cannabis. Specifically, we’re talking about a chemical in the endocannabinoid family. Somewhat similar to your traditional cannabinoids (like THC and CBD) found in marijuana, endocannabinoids are made within the body.

If you’re on the east coast and see some odd-colored clouds in the sky, it’s probably science’s fault. NASA, America’s second-coolest space agency, is testing a new “ampoule ejection system” in its rockets with a set of vapor-generating canisters to form artificially colored clouds used in studying the ionosphere. The launch will occur in Virginia between 9:04 and 9:19 p.m. from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. The canisters will deploy between 4 and 5.

Do you really want potato chips, but all you have are potatoes? I totally feel you. Sure, you could preheat your oven and start baking (or put on pants and go to the store and buy a bag), but what if I told you that you could have delicious homemade potato chips in just a few minutes using your microwave? Dreams do come true. What You’ll Need A potato A cutting instrument Parchment paper Olive or vegetable oil A microwave Start by slicing up that potato as thinly as you can.

When kids want something, they'll ask..and ask...and ask until you cave in. You can teach them to unlearn this annoying negotiation tactic by saying just three words: "Asked and Answered." The technique comes from parenting book author Lynn Lott and shared on the Positive Parenting Solutions blog, which writes: The concept is simple.

You might not think tripping and falling a few feet would do a whole lot of damage, but you’d be dead wrong. Falling injuries are the most common cause of injury-related emergency room visits, with nearly 8 million cases happening every year. These types of tumbles are usually associated with older folks, but a fall at any age can be dangerous—especially if you hit your head.

If you’ve never checked on your app subscriptions, I don’t blame you. It’s a feature buried pretty deeply in your iOS device. But then, you could discover an app charging you $100 per week, so it pays to be vigilant. Developer Johnny Lin got curious during Apple’s WWDC 2017 keynote, when CEO Tim Cook announced a $70 billion payout to developers from the App Store.

Recommendmeabook.com shows you the first page of a random popular book, stripped of identifying info. If you like it, reveal the cover; if you don’t, click “next book.” For example: How does this strike you? My morning swim doesn’t usually involve corpses. If it did, I’d give up swimming for something less stressful, like coaxing cobras out of baskets or my mother out of bed before ten.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that eating french fries, or other fried potato products, can increase your risk of death. For the study, researchers looked at home a group of 4.400 people between the ages of 45 and 79 that were eating their spuds over the course of eight years. By the end of the study, 236 people had passed away, and they were mostly the french fry eaters.

Many coffee drinkers roll out of bed and get their daily dose of java as soon as possible. Because of the way coffee affects our bodies, though, there may be more ideal times to drink it. Neuroscience PhD student Steven Miller explains that in the mornings (between the hours of 8 am and 9 am) our cortisol levels are at their highest. Cortisol isn't just the "stress hormone"—it's also correlated with our alertness levels.

There’s nothing like hitting the beach or the pool on a hot summer day and soaking in some rays — that is until you get home and realize what you’ve soaked in is an epic sunburn. Sunburns suck, take way too long to get rid of, and can make you the joke of the office come Monday when you show up looking like a lobster. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Since last fall, new MacBook Pro models have replaced the function keys with the Touch Bar, a gimmicky touch-sensitive display along the top of the keyboard. It takes some getting used to, and you may find yourself groping for the delete key and cranking up your headphone volume, or idly resting your finger on the escape key and losing your work.

Food writer and Eater’s editor-at-large Helen Rosner has the simplest secret-ingredient tip in all of cookendom: Transforming a dish with one new ingredient feels magical, like you’re the Ratatouille rat chomping on a big mouthful of cheese and strawberry. It inspires some people to carry around hot sauce or a proprietary salt mix. It’s especially revelatory to those of us who grew up on the bland flavors of the midwest.

Right now, if you wanted to figure out the stock price of some company you’re reading about online, you’d have to pop over to another tab, do some googling, and pray the right numbers come up. A trip to Google Finance or Wikipedia may relieve you of the urge to know, but if you’re often trying to put things in perspective, constantly hunting for context could be a hassle, especially on your phone.

Mophie, maker of mobile phone battery packs, has introduced the only thing I’ve wanted to buy from them in quite some time: a wireless charging case. Its new Mophie Charge Force case is a battery-free leather case that has a built-in Qi-compatible wireless charging receiver. You’ve probably seen wireless charging pads in places like IKEA or Starbucks, round inserts in tables or lamps on which you can place your phone to charge.