The Paris skyline is famous for its, well, lack of skyline. Up until 2010, the city of lights had a ban on how tall a new building could be, limiting most new structures to below 37 meters, or about 11 stories. The rules have recently been relaxed, but the progress has been far from Dubai-like.
As a result, Parisians and tourists alike get the chance to enjoy an unobstructed, almost-archaic view of the city, with the Eiffel Tower standing as the primary dominating point, piercing into the sky. Gleaming during the day, erupting into light in the evening. (Do you know these 19 mind-blowing facts about the Eiffel Tower?)
But at what cost? The monument certainly keeps the meter whirring; each year it costs £963,600, or approximately $1.59 million. Each day, that’s a bill of £2,640, or $4,360. All told, the tower has a total of 20,000 light bulbs lining the frame, and it takes about 22 megawatts of electricity per day to run.
Lighting specialists Festive Lights can be thanked for the detailed breakdown—but they didn’t stop there. If you’re curious about the costs to power the Las Vegas Strip of Times Square for instance, they have all the numbers ever needed on those major monuments, and more.
Inspired to head to Paris? Make sure to brush up on these 10 French phrases everyone should know.
What’s the likelihood your car will get stolen?
Car theft can be as much of a nuisance as—and way pricier than—getting your identity stolen. And if you think it will never happen to you, you might want to think again. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s (NICB) latest annual Hot Wheels report, one of the most commonly stolen cars could be sitting in your garage right now.
Using national vehicle theft data, the NICB identified the 10 most-stolen vehicles of 2016 in the United States. They found that thieves tend to target Honda Accords and Civics, with almost 100,000 thefts in total. Car thieves preferred older vehicles, too; 1997 Accords and 1998 Civics were stolen the most often.
If you own a Ford, Chevy, or Dodge pickup truck, beware! They were the most stolen after Hondas. Toyota Camrys and Corollas, Nissan Altimas, Chevy Impalas, and Jeep Cherokees also made the list, accounting for nearly half of the year’s thefts combined.
Only three types of cars were made in the last two years: the 2016 Toyota Camry and 2015 Nissan Altima and Toyota Corolla. The rest of the makes ranged from 2000 to 2008.
Although this list hasn’t changed much over the past few years, the FBI reports that in the last year alone, the total number of reported vehicle thefts in the U.S. increased by 6.6 per cent. The NICB says this could be because car thieves have started to use more sophisticated hacking technology, especially for the electronic anti-theft systems in new vehicles.
If you see your car on the list, don’t panic. You can always make it harder to steal by locking all doors and windows, using anti-theft systems such as car alarms and tracking systems, and parking in well-lit areas. And you should never leave these things in your car.
To rest even easier, you can also purchase a comprehensive car insurance plan that covers the value of your stolen vehicle. Happy driving!
Here are 7 Reasons Your Car Insurance Claim Could Be Denied.
Gelotophobia: The fear of laughter
Have you ever been laughed at? Have you ever been teased, bullied, or become the victim of a stray updog? (What’s updog, you ask? Not much, dog — what’s up with you?)
If you are a human being living on Earth, the answer is yes. All of us play the butt of the joke from time to time. And for most of us, a little laughter is the miracle reaction that helps us process, deflect, and move on. Laughter helps us sort threats from playfulness and strengthens close relationships. One study even suggests that people with a dark sense of humour tend to be smarter, and better emotionally adjusted than those who are easily offended. But for a rare minority of people all over the world, it is literally impossible to take a joke.
There is a word for this: Gelotophobia, the fear of being laughed at. Characterized by atypical laughter processing in the brain, those who suffer from gelotophobia react to all laughter as if it is at their expense. In other words, for gelotophobes there is no “we’re laughing with you,” or even “we’re laughing near you” — it’s always “we’re laughing at you.”
“[Gelotophobes] don’t trust friendly laughter—that someone is just enjoying themselves,” psychologist Willibald Ruch, a pioneering gelotophobia researcher, told Scientific American. As you might surmise, feeling threatened by mirth has powerful social consequences. Responses can range from stress headaches, to uncontrollable trembling, to adrenaline-fueled bursts of anger. One patient Ruch observed couldn’t even sit in front of another person in public. “This person would always wait for the next bus if no seat in the last row was free. He couldn’t stand the idea that someone would sit behind him and laugh,” Ruch said.
What causes a fear of laughter to develop? Mounting research suggests that bullying—in one form or another—is often to blame. Children who grow up in households where parents are quick to dole out punishment and severe discipline are more likely to fear laughter later in life. Likewise, one intense traumatic experience of being bullied (or repeated, less-severe experiences) can lead to the disorder in both children and adults.
Culture plays a big role, too. While gelotophobia may affect as much as 13 per cent of the global population, it is especially likely to occur in countries that favour a social culture built around honour and shame. One global survey of more than 15,000 potential gelotophobes found that people in Finland, seen as a largely egalitarian society, are the least likely to believe that people laughing in their presence are laughing at them (8.5 per cent), whereas 80 per cent of respondents in Thailand believed this to be true.
Ruch believes the fear of laughter could be treated with the same sort of therapies used to address other phobias, but because research into gelotophobia is still relatively new, there’s no surefire solution yet.
Plus: If You Find These Types of Jokes Funny, Science Thinks You’re Insecure
You’re watching a video of your family vacation when you suddenly cringe. Is that really what your voice sounds like? If you can’t stand the sound of your own voice, you’re not alone. But don’t worry—you’re probably the only one who gets annoyed by its sound. There’s a scientific reason you hate your own voice so much.
When we hear an outside sound, like someone else’s voice, the sound travels through your ear, into the canal, and to the eardrum, says Aaron Johnson, PhD, speech–language pathologist and assistant professor in the otolaryngology department at NYU Langone’s Voice Center. Vibrations from the eardrum travel to the inner ear, where fluid makes little hair cells move. Those movements create electric energy that get sent up to the brain, which translates it into sound.
That exact same thing happens when you hear the sounds that come out of your own mouth—but something else happens on top of it. “As we’re talking, sound waves travel not only outside our body, but there is energy bouncing around in our mouth and throat and through our head, directly to the inner portion of our ear,” says Dr. Johnson. Other people can’t sense the vibrations in your mouth, so you hear your own voice differently than they do.
When listening to your own voice on a recording, you aren’t getting those extra vibrations in your mouth and throat, so you’ll hear what everyone else does. Because it’s as unique as your fingerprints, your voice—or what you think it sounds like—is part of your self-image (and can even reveal your personality). A sudden change can be off-putting. “We think of ourselves as sounding a certain way, and then we hear ourselves on recording and it’s completely different,” says Dr. Johnson. “It’s unexpected. It’s like, ‘That’s not me.’”
And there’s a reason people are rarely pleasantly surprised by this new sound. The vibrations coming directly from your head are lower, so the sound is richer. “People are surprised they sound…irritating because it sounds brighter and sounds higher than what they’re used to,” says Dr. Johnson. So when you suddenly sound more Janice from Friends than Morgan Freeman, you might get freaked out.
To get over your hatred of your own voice, try listening to recordings of it, recommends Dr. Johnson. “The more you get used to that, the more you acknowledge ‘That really is my sound,’” he says.
If you think your voice is truly annoying (and not just to you), you aren’t stuck with that sound forever. Singing lessons, public speaking classes, and vocal training can help you learn how to change your voice’s sound, says Dr. Johnson. “We sometimes see people who are just not using their voice efficiently,” he says. “You can find different ways to use your voice to produce different qualities using breath and trying not to use your throat very much.”
Plus: 6 Annoying Speaking Habits You Have, According to Science
The Trials & Tribulations of Being a Genius
History remembers moments of genius. Isaac Newton saw an apple fall to the ground and formulated his theory of gravity. Archimedes was taking a bath when he had his eureka moment: water displacement can measure the purity of gold. But over the past 10,000 years, humans have experienced approximately a quadrillion run-of-the-mill moments, which is a really lousy ratio of genius to not-genius moments. The fact is, the world is set up for non-Einsteins.
My mom was aware of this. She freaked out when I taught myself to read at age three. But while I crushed IQ tests, I was a playground loner and the target of projectiles. Me, at age six: “Here comes a rock, thrown by a bully on the other side of the chain-link fence. The fence is divided into squares that are only slightly larger than the rock itself. The odds that the rock won’t be deflected by the fence are negligible, so I don’t have to duck.” Then the rock passed clean through the fence and clonked me on the head.
As with most people with genius IQs, my social skills needed work. I addressed this problem after college by getting a job as a nightclub doorman. I became obsessed with IDs, spending years developing a statistical algorithm to help me spot fake or borrowed cards with 99 per cent accuracy. But after a decade of research, I was still getting paid $8 an hour.
When I was a writer for the quiz show Weakest Link in 2001 and 2002, we had a quota of 24 questions a day. This didn’t seem like enough for someone with my big genius brain, so I set my own quota of up to 100 questions a day. I didn’t know that my bosses were evaluating us based on how many of our questions were rejected. Writing three times as many questions as everyone else, I consistently landed at the top of the list and was fired.
I studied for almost a year to get on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. For my $16,000 question, taped in July 2000, Regis Philbin asked me, “What capital city is located at the highest altitude above sea level?” I answered, “Kathmandu.” Millionaire claimed the correct answer was Quito. However, the world’s highest national capital is generally considered to be La Paz, which wasn’t included among the possible answers. I sued the show, backing up my claim by comparing my question with more than 100,000 other Millionaire questions. I eventually lost—it turns out judges don’t have much patience for quiz-show lawsuits.
Not everything has backfired because of my genius. I’ve had a 25-year career as a comedy writer on TV shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live. I have a lovely wife and daughter. And having earned 12 years of college credits in less than 12 months and graduating with five majors, I’m always able to help with homework when needed.
In 20 years, my mental power will be commonplace. Thanks to our increasingly brilliant devices, we’ll all be geniuses, with every shred of information in the world at our fingertips. And just like me, you’ll use your vast computational resources to do mostly dumb stuff. See you at the 2036 Four-Dimensional Candy Crush Championship, everybody!
Want more from our Department of Wit? Read Age by Design.
Brie Larson on her directorial debut, Unicorn Store
Long before Brie Larson won an Academy Award for her performance in Room, she auditioned for a movie about a unicorn-obsessed dreamer. She didn’t get the part, and the production stalled. Five years later, she’s not only starring in that film—Unicorn Store—she directed it as well.
Premiering at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Next Wave line-up, Unicorn Store is Larson’s feature directorial debut, and finds the 27-year-old exploring a theme she’s passionate about: the importance of being childish.
“What’s available to us at all times is childlike play and innocence, even in the face of things that are scary,” said Larson at a TIFF 2017 roundtable held by Nespresso Canada. “The experience of making this movie wasn’t so much about, ‘How am I going to get through crying for eight hours today?’ and instead was, ‘Who can make each other laugh the most today?'”
In the film, Larson plays Kit, an art school dropout with a childlike worldview. When her camp counsellor parents (played by Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford) pressure her to embrace adulthood, she takes a job as a temp at an ad agency. One day, she begins receiving invitations to a magical pop-up store owned by an enigmatic salesman (Samuel L. Jackson), who tells her she’ll get her own unicorn if she completes a series of tasks.
“When I read the script, I knew I had to do it,” said 2017 TIFF Rising Star Mamoudou Athie, who plays Kit’s friend Virgil in the film. “There aren’t a lot of movies this openhearted, this beautifully earnest and told from the point of view of a character like Kit.”
Described by Larson as “aggressively positive,” Unicorn Store is packed with glittering, rainbow-hued visuals, down to the sparkling tinsel adorning Jackson’s hair. Every frame of Unicorn Store, she said, contains imagery that she finds meaningful.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to make a film that’s extremely feminine and soft, and I’m going to ask men to take a step forward and enter my space,'” said Larson. “I’ve entered their space for most of my life; they can take a step in mine.”
One-third of the films selected for TIFF this year are directed by women—an important step in the festival’s promotion of gender parity.
“As a person who identifies as a woman in this world, I am asked a lot, ‘How do you feel about proving yourself as a female director?'” she said. “Now I’m at this point where I’m like, ‘Women have been proving it for a really, really long time.'”
Plus: 5 Travel-Worthy Canadian Film Festivals
The most common kind of heart-rhythm abnormality, atrial fibrillation affects about six per cent of people over 65. It occurs when the atria—the heart’s two upper chambers—contract quickly and chaotically. Whereas a normal resting heart rate ranges between 60 and 100 beats per minute, a resting heart affected by AFib may beat between 100 and 175 times within the same time period.
As scary as this sounds, many people with atrial fibrillation feel fine. They may not know about their condition until a doctor notices an unusual heartbeat during a checkup. However, if there are clear symptoms, those can include chest pain or thumping, shortness of breath, light-headedness or noticeable anxiety. (Chest pain or pressure could also indicate a heart attack, so if you encounter either of those, you should play it safe and head to a hospital.)
Different variables can contribute to the development of atrial fibrillation, including but not limited to thyroid problems, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, binge drinking or heart disease—anything that could stretch or scar the atrial walls. It is more common among seniors and people with a family history of the condition. Once you’ve been diagnosed, your doctor will likely recommend blood thinners to help prevent strokes and blood clots.
For many patients, atrial fibrillation progresses from occasional episodes to longer, more frequent ones, “like a car that needs to go to the garage for the same problem increasingly often,” says Dr. Dan Atar, a co-author of the European Society of Cardiology’s atrial fibrillation treatment guidelines.
For as long as the issue persists, you’ll likely need rate-control drugs, which slow the heart’s racing; you can also take antiarrhythmic medications, which control abnormal heart rhythms, preventing new episodes. Your doctor may be able to reset your heart from an atrial fibrillation episode using drugs or a slight electric shock. Your best shot is catheter ablation, which involves sending a catheter into the heart to burn the tissues that are firing off irregular impulses. Ablation works about 70 to 75 per cent of the time and stands a decent chance of solving the problem permanently.
For more tips on maintaining a healthy heart, check out 30 Ways to Boost Your Heart Health.
Originally published in the September 2017 issue of Reader’s Digest Canada.
Why tardigrades can survive anything
You’ve probably heard jokes about cockroaches surviving the apocalypse. Mythbusters tested it in one episode, and the post-apocalyptic Pixar flick Wall-E showed roaches as the only surviving living creatures on a wasteland Earth. (Not all bugs are pests! Here’s how to roll out the welcome mat for insects that are actually good for your garden.)
However, cockroaches are not the most resilient species on Earth. Far from it. There’s a microscopic creature that can survive 300-degree temperatures, up to 30 years without food or water, and even several days in space. Meet the tardigrade.
Also known as a “water bear” or a “moss piglet,” these plump, waddling, eight-legged microorganisms are often found around mossy trees. However, they can be found in countless different environments: in the desert, on mountaintops, in rainforests. They live on all seven continents, too. (Here are some animal species you never knew were endangered.)
When conditions become inhospitable, tardigrades undergo a sort of “pseudo-death.” They curl up in on themselves and enter a “stasis” that allows them to survive all sorts of crazy conditions: temperatures close to absolute zero; enough radiation to kill a herd of elephants; stronger pressures than the deepest oceans.
Because of this, an Oxford University study has found that tardigrades would likely be able to survive all sorts of outer space catastrophes. Catastrophes like asteroids and supernovas, that would wipe out humans and probably most other life forms on Earth. (Not that anything like that’s going to happen any time soon; it’s just scientists imagining the scenarios.) This means that, thanks to these gummy-looking oddities, it would be tough to wipe out all life on Earth. “Although nearby supernovae or large asteroid impacts would be catastrophic for people, tardigrades could be unaffected,” claims study co-author David Sloan. “Huge numbers of species…may become extinct, but life as a whole will go on.” As Jeff Goldblum summed up in the original Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”
Tardigrades are so resistant to Earth’s most extreme conditions that some have speculated that they come from outer space. While firm scientific evidence shows that they did originate on Earth, scientists are searching for clues these creatures might provide about life on other planets. “Tardigrades are as close to indestructible as it gets on Earth, but it is possible that there are other resilient species…elsewhere in the universe,” says Rafael Alves Batista, another author of the study. “If tardigrades are Earth’s most resilient species, who knows what else is out there.”
Why You Should Never Say, “Let Me Know What I Can Do.”
Still in shock, I stumbled about the house trying to decide what to put into the suitcases. Earlier that evening, I’d received a call from my hometown in Missouri telling me that my brother, his wife, her sister, and both the sister’s children had been killed in a car crash. “Come as soon as you can,” begged my mother.
That’s what I wanted to do—to leave at once, to hurry to my parents. But my husband, Larry, and I were in the midst of packing all our belongings to move from Ohio to New Mexico. Our house was in total confusion. Some of the clothes that Larry and I and our two young children, Eric and Meghan, would need were already taped up in cartons. Which ones? Stunned by grief, I couldn’t remember. Other clothes lay unwashed in a pile on the laundry-room floor. Supper dishes still sat on the kitchen table. Toys were strewn everywhere.
While Larry made plane reservations for the following morning, I wandered about the house, aimlessly picking things up and putting them down. I couldn’t focus. Again and again, the words I’d heard on the phone echoed through my head: “Bill is gone—Marilyn too. June—and both the children …”
It was as though the message had muffled my brain with cotton. Whenever Larry spoke, he sounded far away. As I moved through the house, I ran into doors and tripped over chairs.
Larry made arrangements for us to leave by seven o’clock the next morning. Then he phoned a few friends to tell them what had happened. Occasionally, someone asked to speak to me. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know,” that person would offer kindly.
“Thank you very much,” I’d reply. But I didn’t know what to ask for. I couldn’t concentrate.
I sat in a chair, staring into space, while Larry called Donna King, the woman with whom I taught a nursery class at church each Sunday. Donna and I were casual friends, but we didn’t see each other often. She and Emerson, her thin, quiet husband, were kept busy during the week by their own “nursery”—six children ranging in age from two to fifteen. I was glad Larry had thought to warn her that she’d have the nursery class alone the coming Sunday.
While I sat there, Meghan darted by, clutching a ball. Eric chased after her. They should be in bed, I thought. I followed them into the living room. My legs dragged. My hands felt gloved with lead. I sank down on the couch in a stupor.
When the doorbell rang, I rose slowly and crept across the room. I opened the door to see Emerson King standing on the porch.
“I’ve come to clean your shoes,” he said.
Confused, I asked him to repeat.
“Donna had to stay with the baby,” he said, “but we want to help you. I remember when my father died, it took me hours to get the children’s shoes cleaned and shined for the funeral. So that’s what I’ve come to do for you. Give me your shoes—not just your good shoes, but all your shoes.”
I hadn’t even thought about shoes until he mentioned them. Now I remembered that Eric had left the sidewalk to wade through the mud in his good shoes after church the previous Sunday. Not to be outdone by her brother, Meghan had kicked rocks, scuffing the toes of her shoes. When we’d returned, I’d tossed them into the laundry room to clean later.
While Emerson spread newspapers on the kitchen floor, I gathered Larry’s dress and everyday shoes, my heels, my flats, the children’s dirty dress shoes, and their sneakers with the food spots. Emerson found a pan and filled it with soapy water. He got an old knife out of a drawer and retrieved a sponge from under the sink. Larry had to rummage through several cartons, but at last he located the shoe polish.
Emerson settled himself on the floor and got to work. Watching him concentrate intently on one task helped me pull my own thoughts into order. Laundry first, I told myself. As the washer chugged, Larry and I bathed the children and put them to bed.
While we cleared the supper dishes, Emerson continued to work, saying nothing. I thought of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Our Lord had knelt, serving his friends, even as this man now knelt, serving us. The love in the act released my tears at last, healing rain to wash the fog from my mind. I could move. I could think. I could get on with the business of living.
One by one, the jobs fell into place. I went into the laundry room to put a load of wash into the dryer, returning to the kitchen to find that Emerson had left. In a line against one wall stood all our shoes, gleaming, spotless. Later, when I started to pack, I saw that Emerson had even scrubbed the soles. I could put the shoes directly into the suitcases.
We got to bed late and rose very early, but by the time we left for the airport, all the jobs had been done. Ahead lay grim, sad days, but the comfort of Christ’s presence, symbolized by the image of a quiet man kneeling on my kitchen floor with a pan of water, would sustain me.
Now whenever I hear of an acquaintance who has lost a loved one, I no longer call with the vague offer, “If there’s anything I can do …” Instead I try to think of one specific task that suits that person’s need—such as washing the family car, taking the dog to the boarding kennel, or house-sitting during the funeral. And if the person says to me, “How did you know I needed that done?” I reply, “It’s because a man once cleaned my shoes.”
Check out these 7 Things You Should Never Say at a Funeral.
This article originally appeared in the December 1983 issue of Reader’s Digest. Republished as This Powerful Story Will Convince You to Stop Saying “Let Me Know If You Need Anything” on ReadersDigest.com.
