Inverse - 🙉 The torment of misophoniacs

By Nick Lucchesi

When I joined Inverse, early in its life as a new type of media startup, we were all crammed into this apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sitting with laptops at tables. Quarters were tight: Leadership meetings were held in a lofted area and editors sat in another bedroom. Writers were in what amounted to a living room. The main bathroom was right there for all to see. And when lunchtime came, there were smells, there were crumbs, and there was chewing. So much chewing. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything though. Even the chewing sounds.

Today’s lead story is all about chewing. I’m Nick Lucchesi, editor-in-chief for Inverse, and this is Inverse Daily. Keep your mouth closed and let’s dig in.

The torment of misophoniacs

[By Jess Thompson]

Betty Henderson once ended a relationship because of her boyfriend's chewing noises. 

“If I’m going into the office or working from a public place, I would always take my noise-canceling headphones to deal with people snacking,” Henderson tells Inverse. “I would only ask people to stop if I’m very close to them. It’s caused regular arguments with my family my whole life and was a huge point of tension in my last relationship.”

When she confronted her then-boyfriend and told him that certain sounds (loud chewing, annoying mouth noises, sniffing) made her insides curdle, he said she was “difficult.” They broke up.

A marketing and comms executive, Henderson suffers from misophonia, a condition in which people experience intense anger and disgust when they hear other people make specific noises. If you’ve never experienced it, it is hard to understand, but for Henderson and many like her, misophonia ruins friendships and causes deep family rifts.

Read the full article →

Related:

• Is chewing ice bad for your teeth? A dentist sinks his teeth into the matter
  

Going to bed after this specific time damages metabolic health

[By Nick Keppler]

In spite of our obsession with hustling and addiction to pixelated distractions, reasons to develop good sleep habits keep stacking up. Good sleep, scientists increasingly understand, helps stabilize several internal clocks that keep the body functioning. Now, researchers have discovered two sleep factors that may play roles in how we metabolize breakfast — and reveal what you should absolutely not do to perk up after a bad night.

Read the full story →

Related:

• Biological age and sleep: 4 vital facts explain the importance of Zzzs
  

New photo shows the enormity of the James Webb telescope

[By John Wenz]

It’s difficult to state just how enormous the James Webb Space Telescope is — both as a technological feat and as a physical object. A new photo, released by the European Space Agency, gives an idea of the scope of the ’scope and marks the achievement of one of the final steps toward launch — and toward its 30 days of terror. 

The main mirror is 21 feet in diameter or about as tall as a two-story house. Its massive solar shade — needed to enable the spacecraft to peer into the darkness of the void as unencumbered as possible — is nearly the size of a tennis court (78 feet). All of this hardware is designed to exist in space far beyond the reach of crewed repair teams. There, it will unlock the early universe, examine exoplanets in unprecedented detail, and watch galaxies, stars, and planets form.

See the photo and read the article →

See also:

• Why NASA shipped the $10 billion Webb telescope down the Panama Canal
  

A drug for erectile dysfunction could effectively treat a deadly brain disease

[By Katie MacBride]

Part of the problem with finding a new drug to treat a lethal, currently incurable brain disease is that even when scientists happen upon a promising candidate, they then have to go through a lengthy, at times bureaucratic, clinical trial process to assess the drug’s safety, effects, and long-term capabilities; after all that, there’s a secondary federal approval process — together these can take years. There is another way, however — and a new paper in Nature Aging suggests one group of scientists may have discovered an alternate, faster path to treatment.

Get the full story →

Related:

• Men with erectile dysfunction may face a higher risk of death
  

Meanwhile ...

• Why misremembering is actually good for the brain
  
• Look: The largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Italy changes ancient history
  
• 'Don’t Look Up' review: Adam McKay's apocalypse satire is surprisingly poignant
  
• The most complex sci-fi character of 2021 deserves a spinoff series ASAP
  

Inverse Loot

Shop our favorite deals. We only recommend products we love.

• The best home & kitchen deals on Amazon right now
  
• 80 cheap gift ideas for the holiday season

That's all for this edition of Inverse Daily

Programming note — This is my last week writing Inverse Daily! Make way in the near term for Claire Cameron to be your host starting next week! Follow Claire on Twitter at @clairehcameron.

About the newsletter: Do you think it can be improved? Have a story idea? Want to share a story about the time you met an astronaut? Send those thoughts and more to newsletter@inverse.com. 

• Notable birthdays: Nicki Minaj (39), Sinead O'Connor (55), Teri Hatcher (57), Kim Basinger (68), Dominic Monaghan (45). (Source: AP.)
• Song of the day: “Chewed Up” by Saffron
  

A technical note — To ensure your email open is counted toward our rewards program, confirm that all the images have loaded and your ad blocker is turned off. Please wait one day for your new open total to be reflected.

You’ve opened 7 out of 7 emails this month and unlocked Inverse Silver!

Congrats! This is your 8th consecutive open!

• Next Rewards Level: $50 Amazon Gift Card

Read Inverse Daily every day to advance your rank in our monthly giveaways. The more you read, the better the prizes.

Lifetime Stats

You rank in the 100th percentile of Inverse Daily subscribers with 2870 lifetime opens. That’s 5% up from last week.

Share Inverse Daily

Do you know someone who would enjoy reading Inverse Daily? Take a few minutes to share it with them.

Click to Share

Or copy & paste your personal referral link:

https://www.inverse.com/newsletter?referral_code=024cfe3d-65ed-4a7d-923d-6538f2414d1d&list=inverseDaily