The wackiest headlines from the week as they would appear in a Classifieds section.

Careers

CONSULTING MLM: The Australian government hired an ethics consultant to advise it on how to work with consultants. The consultant who recruits the most consultants will win a pink car.

WALRUS SNUGGLER: A rescued walrus calf in Alaska will receive 24/7 cuddles to nurse it back to health. Uh oh, looks like, umm, maybe we are a little sick, too, if this kind of stuff is getting prescribed.

Personal

ISO CANINE DRIVING LESSONS: A dog (which is employed by a Michigan fire department) jumped onto the accelerator of a golf cart and ran over a four-year-old girl’s leg. The child is fine with no injuries, but we bet she knows not to fake-throw any more tennis balls.

ISO NEW FRIDAY PLANS: The Mayor of Tampa, FL, found 70 pounds of cocaine while fishing off the Florida coast. She’s decided to mount her catch.

For sale

BURGER 4 A BURGER: The Miami Marlins sold $5 burgers to celebrate snagging infielder Jake Burger from the White Sox. Crossing our fingers they acquire Dan Oystersandchampagne next.

WALKING SHOES—VERY USED: Danish man Torbjorn Pedersen just returned home after visiting all 195 countries without using an airplane. He journeyed about 260,000 miles over 10 years and never even once got a little biscotti.—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even improve your memory while you sleep.

Sleep smells boost memory. If you’ve ever teased someone for using an oil diffuser at night, they will not forget it. New research has found an overwhelmingly positive correlation between cognitive performance and sniffing full-strength natural oils while sleeping. In a trial, adults between 60 and 85 turned on a diffuser before bedtime and slept with any natural oil scent for two hours per night for six months. They performed 226% better on a memory test than those in the control group, according to the study out of the University of California, Irvine. The researchers say their findings mean that smell therapies, which are sometimes used with dementia patients, could be deployed overnight instead of taking up waking hours.

Mood might be key to charitable giving. A recent study indicates that people donate to charity when they’re already feeling happy, which differs from the common theory that people get a happiness boost after donating to charity. By analyzing tweets from more than 20,000 Twitter users who contributed to Wikipedia, researchers found an increase in positive-emotion language up to an hour before donations took place, followed by a return to neutral happiness levels. But they also say their findings are limited by only assessing tweets. Some happy donors might just be more likely to post about their charity work online, whereas other donors (who might feel happy or sad or neither) might keep it to themselves.

Don’t eat these square watermelons. Every few years, it seems our social media feeds obsess anew over Japan’s aesthetically pleasing cube-shaped watermelons, as they did last weekend. The first square watermelon was grown in 1975 in Zentsuji, Japan, simply by putting a budding melon in a transparent box—no special seeds required. And because the fruits grow into whatever shape they’re forced into, triangular and heart-shaped watermelons can also be found in Japan. But before you drop up to $800 to get one shipped to your kitchen counter, you should know they’re practically inedible. Square watermelons are picked before they’re ripe in order to last as prized display items for longer, so you wouldn’t enjoy eating the expensive status symbols (though that didn’t stop this guy).—ML

Cargo ships spewing plumes of sulfuric smoke sounds like something worthy of an indignant “How dare you?” from Greta Thunberg.

But this type of pollution might actually have been slowing climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Sulfur-spitting ships leave a cloud trail that can function as a jumbo beach umbrella, temporarily keeping the ocean waters cool by reflecting sunlight.

How do we know? As science vlogger Hank Green recently spotlighted, we’ve all been involved in a massive, accidental experiment in geoengineering—the controversial concept of altering the Earth’s environment to curb climate change—and we didn’t even know it.

In 2020, a new UN rule for fuels that the shipping industry could use took effect, and ships now belch out over 80% less sulfur. While reducing emissions of a chemical that’s harmful to human health is a win for everyone, it’s also become an unintended field test demonstrating how chemical clouds could be used to keep the Earth from overheating.

• Some scientists believe the new absence of these clouds partially caused this year’s record-breaking summer temps in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Although other factors like El Niño and the eruption of an underwater volcano in the Pacific Ocean last year likely played a role, the reduction of sulfur dioxide clouds is believed to be one of the reasons oceans have been so hot, causing record temperatures on land.

While the human-caused phenomenon is unintentional, some experts have long considered making reflective clouds deliberately (or boosting existing ones) to stave off global warming—even though the planet-scale risks of this approach keep it from becoming most scientists’ Plan A for climate change.

The Pandora’s box of climate engineering

Sucking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, aka carbon removal, is the least contentious geoengineering tool. Experts disagree over how well it works, but no one is worried it’ll turn our planet into an IRL environmental apocalypse film.

The same can’t be said about repelling sunrays by spraying sulfur aerosol into the stratosphere or enriching ocean clouds with sea salt to make them more reflective. Many climate scientists believe these methods are too risky since their effects aren’t entirely predictable and won’t be uniform across the planet. Others see geoengineering as a distraction from efforts to cut carbon emissions.

In a simulation run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, using sulfuric aerosols as a sun blocker made winters rainier in Scandinavia and drier in Mediterranean Europe. This would be disruptive to local agriculture and ecosystems. These disparate effects are bound to be a big sticking point in international relations, threatening to turn every UN meeting into a screaming match over who controls the “global thermostat.”

Researchers also warn that once humanity embarks on the path of artificial sunlight reflection, it might be hard to turn back— studies suggest that ceasing a geoengineering effort abruptly could cause major climate trouble.

Not all experiments are accidents

Some private companies have undertaken small-scale efforts to test sun ray-reflecting technologies.

One researcher from the UK teamed up with a space startup, European Astrotech, to test a system called “stratospheric aerosol transport and nucleation” (the acronym probably isn’t the best for a controversial emerging tech: SATAN). With a $1,000 balloon system, it achieved what might’ve been the first successful delivery of sun-blocking aerosols to the stratosphere, according to unpublicized reporting obtained by the MIT Technology Review.

Though the experiment was properly permitted and released just 400 grams of sulfur, scientists opposed to these efforts are unsettled by the fact that someone with a bit of cash and a startup partner is testing tech that could change the weather with minimal oversight.

It’s now not a matter of if but when geoengineering happens, climate economist and geoengineering research proponent Gernot Wagner told Morning Brew. He thinks scientists should investigate potential effects now so that the world isn’t blindsided when some nation decides to plow ahead with it.

The government is taking geoengineering seriously…the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recently released a report outlining what research could be done to evaluate the risks and benefits of the technology.—SK

Meal prep: Tuscan pasta with salmon seems impressive but couldn’t be easier to make, as demonstrated by this TikTok from Michael Finch (there are a few f-bombs, btw).

Book rec: Fans of My Octopus Teacher should read the novel Remarkably Bright Creatures. It’s the story of a friendship between an octopus in an aquarium and the woman who looks after him.

Pantry stuffer: Use this savory Korean pancake mix to make a delightful meal out of leftover veggies.

Fall rec: Get you a blanket that can do both. This one from Rumpl (for less than $100) doubles as a picnic and camping blanket.

Streaming rec: Never watched Suits? Now’s your time, because everyone seems to be rewatching the legal drama.

Listen: If lyrics about dating rock stars speak to you, check out up-and-coming girl band The Beaches.

With pleasure: Presenting MysteryVibe’s Crescendo 2, a doctor-recommended, FDA-registered vibrator. Clinically proven to improve arousal and alleviate dryness, it bends to your needs and even wins awards. Here’s 20% off—you’re welcome.*

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It’s a big world out there. In this section, we’ll teleport you to an interesting location—and hopefully give you travel ideas in the process.

Opened August 10 and running through next weekend, the sprawling Iowa State Fair is an annual celebration of agriculture, American democracy, and fried foods on a stick.

While every state thinks its late-summer fair is the best, Iowa’s (est. 1854) stands out from the pack. Here’s why.

Creative competitions:

• The state fair’s husband calling contest goes viral every few months, and it is personally one of my favorite videos ever.
• The Mr. Legs contest awards the man at the fair who’s got the best legs.
• Bagging groceries becomes a full-contact sport in a competition that judges contestants based on speed, proper item arrangement, and weight distribution among bags (underrated skill).
• And you can’t miss the butter cow.

Creative food: Do not come to the Iowa State Fair if you prefer eating with utensils, because here, any food you can imagine—hard-boiled eggs, pickles, edible cookie dough, deep-fried strawberry shortcake—comes served on a stick. No matter what freshly impaled foods you try, you should always save room for the pork chop on a stick, ranked the No. 1 Iowa State Fair dish by Des Moines Register readers. Checks out: Iowa is the top US state for pork production.

Politics: You might think wandering around a fairground would help you avoid the political news cycle, but at the Iowa State Fair, there’s no escape. Because of Iowa’s traditional role as the first state to vote in presidential primaries, candidates head to the fair the year before an election to schmooze with voters. Though Democrats booted their Iowa caucuses to later in the calendar this year, the state is still up first for Republicans in January. This year, 13 presidential candidates are scheduled to hit the fair’s Soapbox stage.—NF

Last week we asked: How would you know that you’ve mastered a language?

Here are some of our favorite responses.

• “I knew I’d reached a French milestone when I could understand my neighbor’s hallway fights with her boyfriend.”—Elizabeth from Washington, DC
• “When you get pulled over for a traffic violation and you can nervously stammer your way out of it in the local tongue.”—Mark from Houston, TX
• “When you smash your foot into something, and the resulting profanity that follows is not in English.”—Josh from Shenzhen, China
• “After 10 years of marriage to a German, I know the answer: It’s when you are super mad about something and can still form a clear and convincing argument.”—Lizzy from Munich, Germany
• “I could be a Dungeon Master for a D&D campaign with that language.”—Phillip from the Bronx
• “When you can comfortably flirt and enjoy it!”—Shayda from CA

This week’s question

Back-to-school season is upon us, so our question for you is: What is the most underrated school supply?

Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: “The humble gripper. My parents wouldn’t buy them for me, but I did manage to acquire a lime green, glittery rubber gripper that I held onto forever.”

Share your response here.