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

Careers

CEO AT 7 OR ABOVE: The chief executive of Verizon, Hans Vestberg, revealed that he’s been ranking his mood from 1 to 10 every day since 2009. So, now you know why your cell service is generally worse on Mondays.

COMEDIAN CAPTAIN: Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place fans can sail around Maine with actor Marc Evan Jackson. If you’re lucky, he’ll answer a question by staring at you blankly.

Personal

SPURNED GATOR: Alligators learned the hard way that they can only watch Phillies games on TV after a fan and his emotional support alligator—the internet-famous WallyGator—were denied entrance into Citizens Bank Park to watch the Phillies play the Pirates on Wednesday. It’s a missed opportunity for the Phillies, as gators have been known to frustrate pirates.

TEETH REGENERATION OPPORTUNITY: A Japanese pharma startup is making a drug that could help regrow your chompers. This Jets fan is following the developments closely.

For sale

BIG CHIP: Holy marketing stunt…Doritos set a world record for the highest cheese pull. Earlier this month in England, a helicopter dipped a massive tortilla chip into a special cheese blend within a 14-foot-tall pile of nachos and stretched the cheese 49 feet into the air. The next stunt better involve flavor-blasting a small town.

MY BOOLONG: Alicia Keys filed a trademark for the name “Alicia Teas.” Excited to start our day with “If I Ain’t Got Yerba Mate” or “Earl on Fire.”—MM

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio had to be carried to a medical tent in Kazakhstan after spending 371 days aboard the International Space Station, a record amount of time spent in space for an American. It wasn’t intentional: The journey—initially slated to last six months—had to be extended in March when a micrometeorite damaged the original return vessel. Rubio, along with two Russian cosmonauts, all got back to Earth safely Wednesday, but the extended stay in microgravity can take a toll on the body: Muscle and bone mass can diminish by up to 30% on missions lasting three to six months, half as long as what this trio experienced.

Still, apparently you only need 70% of your bone mass to give a thumbs up.

Here are some illuminating scientific discoveries from the week to help you live better and maybe even look at some dirt.

Mysterious ground rings are appearing all over the world. Satellite images have revealed strange, bare patches of earth encircled by vegetation in 263 places across 15 countries. Researchers discovered the so-called “fairy circles” by training a pattern recognition model off images of known sites previously found in Namibia and Australia. Some members of the fairy circle research community question whether these new ones are true fairy circles—but the researchers who found them are still excited to figure out why exactly the patterns exist.

Building stuff in space is all the rage. NASA has given scientists $2 million to grow stem cells in zero-gravity conditions, while companies like Northrop Grumman and Merck are working to perfect off-Earth production of everything from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals. With the International Space Station decommissioning in 2031 and more privately owned shuttles likely to fill the void, extraterrestrial manufacturing may become commonplace by the end of the decade. NASA is even working with companies on a low-Earth orbit economy to boost US dominance in the tech industry.

🪼 Jellyfish learn without having a brain. Scientists had long thought that only organisms with a central nervous system could engage in learning, but marine biologists from Denmark found that brainless Caribbean box jellyfish can do it, too. Researchers placed the swimming blobs in round tanks lined with dark stripes and watched them go from bumping into the walls to avoiding them within a few minutes. This means they learned to associate the stripes with the presence of an obstacle—and it could also indicate that they have short-term memory.—ML

Spooky season has a different meaning for the federal student loan borrowers who need to start making payments again this month now that the pandemic-era pause is officially over.

Tens of millions of Americans will have to free up some space in their monthly budgets for the first time since March 2020 to repay the tuition money they borrowed from government lending programs.

• Some borrowers have been putting their extra cash toward nonessential purchases like entertainment, travel, dining, and retail—and now the businesses that enjoyed those treat-yourself gains are anticipating a pullback.
• Analysts estimate that repayments could take between $70 billion and $100 billion in consumer spending out of the economy over the next year.

To get a sense of what that actually looks like, Morning Brew talked to two young professionals with student loans about what changes they plan to make in their spending habits. Here’s what they had to say.

Paula P., community manager, ~$20,000 in federal loans

Paula left Covid-infested New York City in 2020 to finish her senior year at NYU from her family’s home in Chicago. She graduated having already paid off half of her federal loans with part-time jobs and some help from her parents.

After starting a full-time job in November 2020, Paula continued to live rent-free with her family for another five months and was able to save enough to calm her nerves now that loan payments are back on.

“I’m in a pretty good spot,” she said. “I did freak out seeing that balance. I was like, ‘Oh, this is an amount of money that I forgot about,’ but overall, I think I’m gonna be okay.”

Paula’s budget for necessities won’t have to change, which she’s grateful for. “It’s just the extras that are gonna have to go,” she said, especially the ones whose prices have gone up, including…

• Concerts: Paula spent some of the money that would’ve gone toward her loans on live music and other recreational experiences, which she said are now first on the budgetary chopping block. Since 2019, the average price of resale concert tickets on SeatGeek has more than doubled, partly thanks to higher demand and added fees, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Travel: Since April, Paula has bounced around Europe, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, where she is living again. She wanted to do one more international trip this year but now thinks she’ll stay put through the holidays.
• Dining: Having friends can be expensive, especially when they want to eat out. “I think I’m going to have to be a little more conscious…or just say, ‘Can we go for a walk in the park instead?’” Paula said. Earlier this year, restaurant prices rose faster than grocery prices for the first time since inflation started picking up in mid-2021.

To stretch her budget, one strategy Paula already uses is bartering: She’s done social media work for a gym she liked in exchange for free classes and personal training.

Lisa C., product designer, ~$70,000 in federal loans

Lisa decided to use the first pandemic stimulus check to make one payment during the freeze toward the loans she took out to get a graduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

Then she decided to leave it be and put her “extra” money toward concerts, road trips, camping, and a Netflix account so she could take part in the shared experience of watching Tiger King during lockdown. She still has the subscription, plus a couple of others, but she intends to save money by canceling some of the increasingly expensive streaming services.

“In not having to pay your debt, you almost experience a little bit of lifestyle creep,” Lisa explained.

Lisa knows she’d have to make more significant changes if she lived in a high-cost area like New York City. But she’s in Pittsburgh (where the average cost of living is 128% lower, according to Forbes) and earns a tech industry salary, so she has more flexibility in budgeting for loan payments.

Lisa may also ramp up the freelance work she does outside her full-time job—something Paula is considering, too.

And meal prepping is probably inbound: “I just want to approach it with a mentality of, ‘If I could do this at home, or if there’s a cheaper alternative, can I [do] that instead?’” Lisa said.—ML

Cook: Baked rosemary chicken meatballs with tomato orzo from The Original Dish.

Read: Scandal’s Kerry Washington released a memoir.

Watch: Flora and Son, a music-filled Irish movie, on Apple TV+.

Cozy tip: Warm up your bed before you get into it with a hot water bottle.

Listen: A 10-part investigative series about the Osage Nation and the Reign of Terror to get you prepped for Killers of the Flower Moon later this month.

Vibe: It’s about time for a ~fall feels~ playlist.

True taste: Wanna level up your chef game? Snag some Primal Kitchen® Mayo, the #1 mayo in natural grocery for 5 years. Get 25% off your entire online order with code MORNINGBREW.*

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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.

One of the world’s most photographed trees was cut down in its prime.

The 300-year-old Sycamore Gap Tree—also known as the Robin Hood Tree—was felled by what police called a “deliberate act of vandalism” in Northumberland National Park on Thursday. A 16-year-old boy and a man in his sixties were arrested on Friday in connection with the incident.

The centuries-old tree stood alongside Hadrian’s Wall, a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia that draws thousands of tourists. But it achieved worldwide notoriety in modern times when it was featured in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. According to the most recent data, more than 1 million visitors contributed £78 million (~$95 million) to businesses in the park in 2021.

Even with the tree made famous by Kevin Costner now just a stump, there is still beauty to be seen nearby and reasons to visit the area, including a Roman fort that once housed 1,000 soldiers and something called the “Steel Rigg & Crag Lough,” which is considered to have the best view of Hadrian’s Wall.

The destruction of the beloved arboreal wonder has generated an outpouring of reactions. One columnist compared the loss of the sycamore to the recent death of British actor Michael Gambon, while a donation page was set up for the National Trust to help improve the area.

As for the tree, a spokesperson for the park said it may regrow from the original stump, but it’s too soon to tell.—DL

Last week, we asked: What’s the most underrated kitchen appliance?

Here are our favorite responses:

• “Kitchen shears. They’re perfect for snipping herbs or cutting chicken bones but are also mandatory for cutting open frozen veggies bags, cereal bags, packages of coffee beans, and potato chips…and for stabbing open the foil seals on new bottles of spices, milk cartons, and vitamins.”—Talley from Columbus, GA
• “Immersion blending wand. Proves its essential worth during soup-making season!”—Emily from Minneapolis, MN
• “Didn’t think I was going to need a device that makes a dozen hard-boiled eggs at a time. Now I don’t think I could live without it.”—Bill from Virginia
• “Definitely the salad spinner. Sometimes I spin it even though it is empty just to watch it go around.”—Dan from Wisconsin
• “My milk frother has significantly upped my at-home latte game. Without it, I’d still be married to Coffee-mate.”—Elizabeth from San Antonio, TX
• “I love a good waffle but when the waffle-maker can act as a griddle or a panini press too—that is extraordinary. The plates are removable and easily cleaned. This is a great invention.”—Janyce from Omaha, NE

This week’s question

Borrowing this question from X user @gothamhiphop: What’s your favorite interaction you’ve had with a famous person?

Adam’s response to get the juices flowing: “One time I interviewed Jeremy Irons and when I walked into the room for the interview, he was staring out the window, drinking a cup of tea. He stayed like that the entire time and refused to turn around and look at me during the conversation.”

Share your response here.