Lightning in a bottle

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today. Here comes the robo-mower, another record-setting Superman comic book, and turns out TV is good for you 👀

Let’s get into it!

Some people genuinely enjoy mowing the lawn, but for others it’s a tedious and taxing experience that they’d rather hand off to someone else.

These days, however, that someone else is better described as something else. Robotic lawnmowers have been slowly entering the market for years, particularly through big players like Segway and Worx, but at CES in Las Vegas last week, it was clear that this niche little garden tool has entered the mainstream.

Both Worx and Segway unveiled 3rd and 4th generation models at the trade show, revealing the upgrades and advancements in technology powering this line of products.

Worx showcased the Cloud Vision Landroid, which mows the lawn with the assistance of satellite-guided land mapping. This particular model also has a custom blade that allows the little guy to get super detail-oriented at the edges of the lawn, alleviating homeowners from the dreaded task of manually finishing the job.

Segway’s new Navimow models leverage several different technological super powers, including LiDAR (like radar but it uses lasers instead of radio waves) and AI-guided vision.

Both products, and the many others introduced by smaller players, are designed to ensure you aren’t lacerated if you happen to bump into them or vice-versa while they’re at work. As production costs have fallen and demand has risen, plenty are now available for around the same price as a riding lawnmower.

Remember when you were told watching TV would turn your brain to mush or make you go blind? We learned long ago that was just a ploy to make us go outside, but a new study published in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology suggests a little TV after a long and busy day is actually good for you.

It’s not that TV specifically is the antidote, but comparing their own research with that of leisure data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, the researchers identified a correlation between taking “me time” and improved mental health.

“We tend to think that home might be a place of rest, but when you have more people—at least when you look at it in terms of number of children—it could create more demands for someone and so it’s not necessarily a place for recovery,” Soo Min Toh, a behaviorist at the University of Toronto Mississauga and study co-author, said.

The researchers looked at data from 61,000 married adults, analyzing the amount of TV they watched, how many young children they had, and how stressed or exhausted they reported feeling. They found those who had young kids, but watched more TV, experienced less stress and exhaustion.

Toh and his research partner also interviewed 100 college students, and when it came to responses to the statement, “I can’t hear myself think” at home, those who spent more time on their smartphones also experienced less stress and anxiety.

Faster than a speeding bullet indeed!

It took less than two months for a Superman comic to shatter the record for most valuable comic on earth, unsurprisingly unseating a record set in November by the Man of Steel as well.

Superman No. 1 sold at a Texas auction in late November for $9.12 million, and on Friday, a copy of Action Comics No. 1 changed hands for $15 million.

Action Comics No. 1 was the Genesis of superhero comic books. Today, roughly 100 copies are known to still be lurking around, but the lore associated with Friday’s copy might explain part of what makes it so valuable beyond its origins.

The same copy was stolen out of the home of Nicolas Cage in the year 2000 after he paid $150,000 for it four years prior. (Could this have been the inspiration for the movie National Treasure?! ‘I’m gonna’ steal the declaration of superhero comics.’)

It was found in a storage locker in 2011, and six months after being returned to Cage, he sold it for $2.2 million.

“During that 11-year period (it was missing), it skyrocketed in value.,” said Stephen Fishler, CEO of Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect, which arranged the $15 million sale. “The thief made Nicolas Cage a lot of money by stealing it,” he said, while comparing it to the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa.

“It was kept under the thief’s bed for two years,” Fishler noted. “The recovery of the painting made the Mona Lisa go from being just a great Da Vinci painting to a world icon—and that’s what Action No. 1 is—an icon of American pop culture.”

What’s in store from ’84

Happy Monday Staker! We’re taking a look back to this week in 1984, with today’s trivia. Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 eGift Card ;)

Winner will be notified on Tuesday afternoon. Keep an eye on your inbox and don’t forget to check your spam folder!*