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

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TIKTOK-APPROVED CASHIER: A Burger King employee who worked at the chain for 20 years and never once called in sick received a gift bag from the company with a mug and some assorted candy. The internet found out and, in addition to roasting BK on TikTok, crowdfunded $400,000 for the employee to visit his grandchildren.

ISO SIGN LAWYER: Pornhub’s parent company is going after a fast-casual German kebab restaurant in NYC called Döner Haus because its logo looks similar to the adult site’s logo. Only one meat purveyor will emerge victorious.

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DRY DESERT WANTED: Tropical Storm Hilary flooded the grounds where Burning Man takes place. Luckily, ahead of the festival (which starts today), the event staff were able to dry everything out for all those people with ludicrous hats they couldn’t wear anywhere else.

SEEKING PLACE TO REST FOREARMS: A Chinese man reportedly pursuing political asylum in South Korea made the 200-mile journey across the Yellow Sea from China to the port city of Incheon via personal water scooter.

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BREAKFAST JUICE: Eggo partnered with a Tennessee distillery to make Eggo Brunch in a Jar, a 20% ABV sippin’ cream that tastes like waffles, bacon, and maple syrup.

OVERHYPED PILLS: Turns out over-the-counter fish oil supplements aren’t actually doing as much for your heart as the claims on the bottle say they are. Just like the pills themselves, this news is incredibly hard to swallow.—MM

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even see more clearly.

🫘 Coffee beans make concrete stronger. Researchers looking to minimize food waste found inspiration—and then construction materials—in their morning brew. A team of Australian scientists has produced concrete that is about 30% stronger by replacing 15% of the mixture’s sand with charred coffee grounds. Australia produces enough concrete that researchers say all 75,000 metric tons of the country’s annual coffee waste could be repurposed as a partial sand substitute, which would help the environment and reduce the construction industry’s demand for natural resources. The researchers are already working with local governments on future infrastructure projects.

A natural solution for nearsightedness. With half of the world anticipated to be unable to see across a room without glasses or surgery by 2050, eye doctors in Taiwan have found a simple solution to prevent childhood myopia, or nearsightedness: spending more time in the great outdoors. Poor eye health has been a big problem for the island country, where around 90% of high schoolers have already developed blurry vision—compared to just 50% of all age groups in Europe and the US. But in the few years since Taiwan launched a program to get young school children outside for two hours each day, myopia rates among primary school kids steadily declined from a peak of 50% to 46.1%.

Participation could be in your DNA. If you’ve ever agreed to be a test subject in a genetics study, you may have inherited a predisposition to participate from your parents. An Oxford study of genetic data from 30,000 relatives stored in the UK Biobank has found a genetic trait that makes people more likely to accept an invitation to join a research study. It’s correlated but distinct from educational attainment, BMI, and other traits. One researcher said this is a “huge step” toward eliminating ascertainment bias (similar to sampling bias) from genetic research, which would make study outcomes more accurate and representative of target populations.—ML

Must-haves for a ship setting sail from Miami to New York: Ocean trip playlist, life jackets, and an American flag on its mast. But Old Glory is the most vital checklist item, since the voyage would be illegal without it. US law forbids foreign vessels from transporting goods between American ports.

The 1920 Jones Act requires that cargo ships undertaking domestic trips be made and registered in America and owned and crewed by Americans. And while an obscure maritime restriction protecting American shipping jobs might not sound like it has much to do with your daily life, its detractors say it pushes up prices and ruins your commute.

Recently, it was accused of complicating the transition to clean energy by inhibiting the ship-heavy construction of offshore wind farms. The controversy shines a spotlight on the law’s unintended consequences.

The offshore problem

The Vineyard Wind project, currently under construction in the waters off Massachusetts, is the first major commercial offshore wind farm in the US. And the most wonkishly named ship in history, the Jones Act Enforcer, was recently spotted in the area. Operated by an industry trade group, the ship’s crew watches over the construction to make sure that non-US ships employ American workers and otherwise comply with the Jones Act.

But not everyone appreciates it: Critics note that Vineyard Wind relies on specialized foreign vessels, and limitations on their use may be inflating costs.

The problem is that the US doesn’t have enough ships to build the wind farm, Joseph Webster of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center told the Boston Globe. He advocates for exempting the offshore wind industry from the rule or making exemptions for boats from US-ally nations (the US has suspended the Jones Act before, after national disasters).

With government funding pouring into clean energy projects, the debate is only likely to heat up.

How did this “Ship American” rule become a thing?

Laws promoting “Made In America” ships for domestic trade are almost as old as the nation, instituted beginning with the First Congress of the United States.

The restrictions were paused during World War I but reinstated shortly after with the passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (aka Jones Act). Lawmakers worried that the US was too reliant on foreign ships to move goods around during the war and wanted to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

To this day, the law’s supporters, including President Biden, tout its ability to protect American jobs in transportation and shipbuilding.

Throwing a wrench into all things water (and beyond)

American shipbuilding has taken a nosedive over the past century—ships are being made more cheaply in Asia—so the Jones Act has become a thorn in the side of many industries as fewer American-made ships are available for service.

The shortage of cheap domestic shipping options might explain why…

• Sending goods by sea from the US East Coast to Puerto Rico was twice as costly as shipments to neighboring Dominican Republic, per a 2012 New York Federal Reserve report.
• New England gets as much as 35% of its liquefied natural gas from abroad, despite the US being among the world’s largest exporters of LNG.

High costs for water transportation mean companies often turn to trucks instead of ships. A hypothetical Georgian farmer packing peaches on a Maine-bound truck rather than a barge might be the reason why you’re often “stuck on I-95 surrounded by smog-producing 18-wheelers,” notes policy analyst Scott Lincicome at the libertarian Cato Institute.

Looking ahead…don’t expect big changes. A bill to repeal the Jones Act was introduced in 2021, but Congress never voted on it since most politicians continue to support the law.—SK

Meal prep: Bust out this everything bagel casserole recipe for a big crowd or if you want a cozy weekend brunch treat for yourself.

Read: The author of Deacon King Kong brings us another epic American novel about community and humanity, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

Cheap buy: Clean your AirPods (or audio earbuds of choice) with this $6 tool.

Watch: Bottoms is a new movie starring The Bear’s Ayo Ederibi about a high school girls’ fight club. NPR calls it “violent, bizarre, and a hoot.” 

Listen: On Exploration Live!, two comedians talk about random stuff and the result is an exceedingly silly yet genius podcast you won’t want to turn off.

Listen x2: Noname, the lyrical genius and rapper, just released a new album, Sundial. Start listening with “Namesake” and “balloons.”

Join the jet set: Ready to hit the open skies? For a limited time, $299 buys you access to more than 5 months of unlimited travel with Frontier’s GoWild All-You-Can-Fly Pass. Start soarin’.*

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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.

Are you feeling lochy?

If so, you might want to book a last-minute flight to the Scottish Highlands, where organizers are holding what could be the largest surface watch for the Loch Ness Monster in more than 50 years.

Like Bigfoot or a better condiment than mayo, we still haven’t confirmed the existence of Nessie, the elusive sea creature whose legend dates back to the year 565, when an Irish saint was “said to have driven a beast back into the water.”

Nearly two dozen sightings of the monster were reported from the 1500s to the 1800s. But the search for Nessie found a global audience in the 1930s, when a local hotel manager reported seeing a “whale-like fish” in Loch Ness and a subsequent photograph showing a head and neck sticking out of the water captured the attention of people around the world (that photo turned out to be a hoax).

If Nessie does live—which would frankly be a stretch, since she’d be at least 1,400 years old—then this weekend’s quest will be the most high-tech effort yet to find her. Researchers plan to use drones equipped with thermal cameras to take infrared images of the water and will deploy a hydrophone that can pick up underwater sounds.

Modern science has been used before to detect whether a massive sea creature lurks in the waters of this vast lake, and the results weren’t kind to believers. In 2019, New Zealand researchers tested DNA in water samples from Loch Ness, but they only found genetic material from eels.

Still, against all common sense and available data, the search for Nessie carries on. You just know that one day she’ll emerge to the surface, give us a wink, and return to the impenetrable depths she’s called home for centuries.—NF

Last week we asked: If you were a ghost, what would be your method of haunting people?

Here are our favorite responses:

• “I would constantly refill things for them (coffee machines, ice trays, candy jars, etc.). Chaotic good ghost is where it’s at.”—Zoe from FL
• “I’d switch the labels on spices. Cinnamon and chili powder can look very similar.”—Billy from Atlanta, GA
• “I would watch an episode of the current series they are on while they’re gone so they possibly miss an important part.”—Nolan from La Crosse, WI
• “I’d make that sound your smoke detector makes when it needs batteries but you can’t figure out which smoke detector is beeping.”—LB from CT
• “Reading over people’s shoulders and turning the page if I got done before them. Or turning the page back and not allowing it to be turned till I was done.”—Lisa from Kearney, MO
• “I’d live in the library and help people find their next great read by nudging it off the shelves toward them. Might also whack a few people on the head with books when they’re being stupid.”—Elizabeth from WY

This week’s question

What is your fantasy football league’s creative punishment for finishing in last place?

Matty’s answer to get the juices flowing: “I’ve never been in a fantasy football league, but if I were, I’d suggest the punishment of making the loser spend two hours in front of a crowded farmers market asking for signatures on a fake petition to ‘legalize cheating on your partner.’”

Share your response here.