Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have a friendship that spans decades. The pair met when they were just little boys growing up in Boston, sharing the same dream. Today, they’re Oscar winners, acclaimed actors, writers, and still best friends. Matt Damon shared a bit more about his friendship with Ben Affleck with People. Matt said that even though becoming an actor is a huge dream, Matt and Ben stuck by each other. “I think Ben and I bolstered each other when we were young. We were in our teens, and we were coming down here to New York on the train or on the bus to audition for things, for The Mickey Mouse Club. We were the only people who believed in each other. We had families, but they weren’t in the entertainment business,” he said. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Are in the Same Season of Life The pair each have children on the verge of spreading their wings and moving on in life, which can leave a couple of dads feeling pretty melancholy. Matt said that having your best friend experiencing the same things helps. “It doesn’t take much to get us emotional at this point,” Matt Damon said of Ben Affleck. “We’re at very similar stages with the kids, and it’s definitely a new phase of life. It was one of the reasons we started the company, getting into our 50s and going, ‘This is the time to do this. We’re young enough to have the energy to do it and old enough to appreciate why we should do it and to make really good movies with our friends and with people we want to work with.’” This story’s featured image is by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images

When you’re the son of Chip and Joanna Gaines, you’re bound to have an entrepreneurial spirit and a bit of creativity. The couple’s youngest son, Crew Gaines, definitely takes after his mom and dad. The 8-year-old recently set up Crew’s Farm Stand, and according to his mom’s Instagram, the business was quite a hit. Joanna Gaines shared a video of Crew cultivating his wares like farm-picked tomatoes, flowers, and, of course, fresh eggs. He then took his items to a bright blue farm stand with a homemade sign that read “open for business.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Joanna Gaines (@joannagaines) Joanna Gaines Was So Proud of Crew Joanna Gaines shared her excitement for Crew and his first day on the job. “Busy morning at the office for Crew—His farm stand sold out in the first hour! Proud little boy. Proud mama (to the @magnolia and @magnoliarealty team, thanks for supporting him!),” he wrote. But it wasn’t just his mama. Fans loved seeing Crew Gaines working hard. As the youngest of the five Gaines kids, he has had plenty of time to study all the best business techniques. “Stop it! The care he puts into setting everything out is so sweet,” a fan commented. Lots of people noticed how much Crew’s spirit reminds them of his mom and dad. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! love this,” one person wrote. This person agreed, commenting, “Stop it right now! That’s too cute. Want to know if his marketing style is more like his mom’s with style and whimsy or his dad’s with sarcasm and jokes.” Chip Gaines got in a message about Crew, too. “I know you’re not supposed to have favorites.. but he’s my favorite! (8yr old),” the silly dad wrote. This story’s featured image can be found here

There’s perhaps no more frustrating human experience than sitting in traffic on a busy road. It’s one thing when there’s been an accident or construction has diverted the flow of vehicles. But sometimes, for no perceptible reason, we’re all just…sitting there. When traffic backups occur without any obvious cause, they’re sometimes called “phantom” traffic jams. Believe it or not, scientists and engineers have been studying the phenomenon for years in an effort to design better infrastructure. A 2008 study finally revealed the cause of phantom traffic jams Yuki Sugiyama, a physicist at Nagoya University, and his colleagues wanted to understand why traffic slows or comes to a stop even when there’s no bottleneck. So they decided to create the perfect driving conditions—ones in which a traffic jam couldn’t possibly form. They had 22 cars drive in a loop on a closed track. The participants were instructed to maintain a constant speed of 30 km/h, and the track provided plenty of room for each driver to keep a safe following distance from the car ahead. There were no lanes to change, no signage, no construction, no obstacles, and no reason for anyone to slow below the “speed limit.” Within about a minute, there was a traffic jam. The cause of phantom traffic jams revealed The research team found that it only takes one: one driver who’s going just a little too slow, or who gets nervous about their following distance and gives the brakes the tiniest tap. What happened in the experiment when one driver did this? It sent a literal “shockwave” through the ring of cars. The car immediately behind the slower driver was forced to slow down even more. The car behind it braked even harder. And so on down the line until the cars at the very back either came to a complete stop or nearly did. “Even a tiny fluctuation grows larger and then the homogeneousmovement cannot be maintained. Finally, a jam cluster appears and propagates backward like a solitary wave with the same speed as that of a jam cluster on a highway,” the researchers wrote. The findings were published in the paper “Traffic jams without bottlenecks—experimental evidence for the physical mechanism of the formation of a jam.” They were also explained beautifully by Tom Cruise’s character, Ethan Hunt, in Mission: Impossible III. Human nature is the traffic jam If we’re the problem—not road design, construction, or the way cars are built—then what’s the solution? Traffic is a major contributor to people’s unhappiness. People with regular commutes—especially long ones—who sit in traffic day after day can experience frustration, anger, and mental health challenges that linger long after they’ve gotten out of the car. One promising solution to phantom traffic jams comes from the world of AI. A traffic experiment similar to the 2008 study took place in Arizona. Researchers had about 20 cars drive in a circle, much like in the original experiment. Once again, human-caused traffic shockwaves rippled through the line of cars after even the slightest fluctuations in speed. However, in the 2016 Arizona study, the researchers added a novel twist: they introduced a single smart, self-driving car into the mix. Immune to human error, the automated car helped smooth out the traffic shockwaves for the other 19 drivers. The findings suggest that introducing more self-driving cars onto our roads could smooth traffic for everyone—and save fuel to boot. Just one out of 20 could make a huge difference. In the meantime, there’s one more solution: we can give each other a break out there. The people stopping and starting around us on jammed highways aren’t being intentionally difficult. They’re just being human. If carefully selected drivers on a perfect, closed track can’t defeat traffic jams, what hope do the rest of us have? Traffic will always be frustrating and inconvenient, but by better understanding the human behavior behind it, maybe we’ll find a little more patience out there on the roads. The post 18 years ago, scientists solved the mystery of ‘phantom’ traffic jams with an odd experiment appeared first on Upworthy.

For centuries, scholars believed that the intricately braided, gravity-defying updos synonymous with Roman hairstyling were achieved with wigs. Then a professional hairdresser turned bona fide “hair archaeology” specialist proved them wrong. Baltimore-based Janet Stephens had been fascinated with hair her entire life. But in 2001, she became particularly interested in ancient hairdressing. A day at the museum turned into a years-long mission While visiting The Walters Art Museum, Stephens viewed a collection of Roman busts displayed from all angles, rather than with their backs against a wall, as was customary.  Being able to circle the busts helped Stephens understand the “logic” behind certain hairstyles, leading her to believe that, contrary to scholarly consensus, they weren’t the result of wigs at all but of ingenuity. At home, Stephens at first tried—and failed—to recreate the ancient styles on practice dummies, despite having access to modern styling tools. Yet as she consulted academic articles on Roman fashion and beauty for insight, she realized the authors didn’t have a practical grasp of hair dynamics. Determined to solve the mystery, Stephens committed herself to years of both hands-on experimentation and historical research. The latter was far outside her wheelhouse, especially when it came to deciphering historical texts. Still, she pushed through, using Google Translate to work through line after line of Latin until, in 2005, she spotted a clue no one had noticed before. A single word unlocked the mystery  The Latin term acus has several meanings, including “single-prong hairpin” and “needle and thread.” In the context of ancient Roman hairdressing, translators had long interpreted acus to mean “single-prong hairpin.” Which, to be fair, makes sense. Single-prong hairpins couldn’t have held up these elaborate hairstyles, but they are commonly used to secure wigs. That all checks out. However, Stephens entertained the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the Romans were actually referring to the “needle and thread” meaning of acus. Sure enough, she was able to recreate these hairstyles by sewing the braids into place with a needle and thread. Just like that, a Baltimore hairstylist with zero experience in archaeology made a groundbreaking archaeological discovery. Her findings were published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology. In 2012, her video “Julia Domna: forensic hairdressing” was presented at the Archaeological Institute of America. In 2013, she became the first person to recreate the hairstyle of the Roman Vestal Virgins. Today, her YouTube channel features historical hair recreations alongside demonstrations of more modern techniques. New answers come to those who are able to ask different questions There’s so much to glean from this story. But perhaps the biggest takeaway is that to truly understand history, we need to view it through both an academic and a practical lens. It’s also a wonderful example of how our own life experiences can give us unique insight into seemingly unrelated subjects in surprising ways. The post A hairstylist with no archaeology degree solved an ancient Roman mystery scholars got wrong for centuries appeared first on Upworthy.

With a star-studded cast playing six strong, Southern women, the 1989 film adaptation of Steel Magnolias has long been hailed as a celebration of female friendship, empowerment, and resilience. And as resurfaced clips from the movie’s press tour show, those themes were rather timely. Cast members Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, and Julia Roberts sat on stage answering questions on the popular talk show Donahue. Host Phil Donahue asked his own questions and audience members asked theirs. Watching it now, though, one thing is clear: We’ve come a long way since the 1980s. Asking women about their weight and looks was par for the course In part one of the clip, Phil Donahue immediately comments on Dolly Parton’s weight, asking her if she eats birdseed for breakfast and telling her she almost weighs nothing. According to 1989 standards, that was meant to be a compliment, but a few decades later, it feels inappropriate. @nostalgia6934 #steelmagnolias #juliaroberts #sallyfield #dollyparton #shirlymcclain ♬ original sound – nostalgia But that’s just the beginning. Several times in part one, the women have to field comments about their weight, their looks, or their age. Often (though not always), those questions and commentary come before the ones about their actual work. In part two, the weight and looks commentary continues. Donahue praises Shirley MacLaine for having the best legs and the best body in the business and asks her how she keeps it up. When a woman asks Sally Field how she stays so thin after having had a baby, fellow cast members immediately chime in with, “She starrrrves.” “I starve,” Field adds with a smile. “It’s just, you know, eat as little as you possibly can. When you feel faint, eat.” And everyone just laughs as if that’s a totally normal thing to say. @nostalgia6934 #olympiadukakis #juliaroberts #sallyfield #dollyparton #steelmagnolias ♬ original sound – nostalgia Ironically, Phil Donahue was an outspoken feminist One might not feel this while watching the clip, but Phil Donahue was a self-described feminist and proud of it. His audience was primarily women, and he used his platform to raise awareness about all kinds of topics that impact women, from domestic violence to reproductive rights. He touted the advancements in the women’s movement throughout his career and even after. In an interview on the TODAY Show in 2017, he shared how when he started his show in 1967, “A boss could tell his secretary to walk around the room so he could look at her, could poke her in the chest and say, ‘Are these real?’ and get away with it. There was nothing she could do about it.” He praised the women who fought back, standing on the shoulders of earlier feminists. And yet, in an interview with five women on his show, questions and commentary about their bodies were seen as totally acceptable, or even expected. That feels cringe and anti-feminist to us now, but it’s really a testament to how far we’ve come since the ’80s. Despite the cringe factor, these interviews felt more ‘real’ than modern ones One other observation people have shared after watching these clips is that there’s a “real” quality to the interactions that feels like it’s missing from many modern press tours. In the age of social media, celebrities feel more guarded, interviews feel more curated, and public relations feels more controlled. It’s understandable. In 1989, no one worried that a small snippet from an interview might turn into a viral clip that gets them “canceled.” Surely, these Steel Magnolia actors put some thought into their answers, but they didn’t seem overly prepared. It’s also clear that Phil Donahue wasn’t afraid to ask all kinds of questions. The conversation, despite the critiques outlined above, seemed more natural than many do today. The fear of asking the wrong kinds of questions or saying the wrong thing in response simply wasn’t the pervasive concern it is now. Like anything else from the past, there are positives and negatives we can take from this. In this case, let’s be real, but ditch the weird body comments, shall we? The post 1989 ‘Donahue’ interview with female cast of ‘Steel Magnolias’ shows how far we’ve come appeared first on Upworthy.