Water you waiting for?

Whether it was Archie or Reggie in the lifeguard chair, when the gang hit the beach you just knew there was going to be hijinks. The lads kept their eyes on swimmers, sort of 🤣, but mostly they were on the lookout for Betty and Veronica.

While you don’t need to be a lifeguard to love swimming, you might need the endurance of a lifeguard to enjoy the latest travel trend. Swimming holidays are just what they sound like—moving yourself from island to island over the water.

Now that’s how you let the days go by ;)

(Love nostalgia? Play today’s trivia below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon eGift Card!)

Super Bowl Sunday is just two days away and according to a new survey conducted by Talker Research, one in four Americans outright care more about the food than they game.

Can we blame them? Depends on if you’re a fan of the Eagles, Chiefs, or neither, we suppose…

But even if you’re excited to see the Chiefs take one final step towards destiny, or to see the Eagles shatter those dynastic dreams, the fact of the matter remains: aside from Thanksgiving, there’s no bigger feast day in America than Super Bowl Sunday.

Those surveyed by Talker had some serious thoughts on the matter, too. For example, 54% of respondents said the food spread has the power to “make or break” the entire experience. 38% said they care more about the food than the commercials, and almost half said the same about the halftime show.

Buffalo or hot wings were considered the most important item on the menu, with 49% saying they’re a must-have. They were followed by barbecue at 38%, and seven-layer dip at 37%.

One way or another, history will be made this Sunday, so eat well and enjoy the ride!

A new study published by researchers at the University of Missouri in Frontiers in Neuroscience found the vestigial muscles around human ears actually show signs of electrical activity when people are attentively trying to listen to something.

Humans today can’t perk their ears up like most animals, save for the few who can at least wiggle them. But all humans are born with these essentially-defunct muscles that might just help medical professionals identify how intense a person’s hearing aids may need to be if they require assistance in hearing.

Humans still have two muscles that, at one point, were designed to perk the ears forward and pull the ears back.

The researchers played an audiobook through speakers for each of the study’s 20 volunteers, and as the experiment went on, a second audiobook was played at different volumes from different areas of the room, forcing the volunteers to try harder to hear the original audiobook.

The electrodes attached to each participant detected various levels of electrical activity in the vestigial muscles depending on the volume and dominance of the distracting audiobook, despite the fact that these muscles no longer really serve a purpose. 🤯

Hubble recently managed to image this heavenly structure that sits 567 million lightyears away from the spot you’re reading this. Nicknamed the Bullseye Galaxy, Hubble was able to identify nine separate rings, eight of which were actually visible to the world’s most famous telescope.

Officially named LEDA 1313424, the galaxy is 2.5 times the size of the Milky Way, and has six more rings than any other known galaxy.

The aptness of its name comes from the way it got all its rings. According to the researchers that leveraged Hubble’s “higher spatial resolution,” the rings were the consequence of small blue dwarf galaxy colliding with LEDA, passing straight through its centre and causing the blue dwarf to disperse like ripples in a pond.

“If we were to look down at the galaxy directly, the rings would look circular, with rings bunched up at the center and gradually becoming more spaced out the farther out they are,” said Imad Pasha, a doctoral student at Yale University and lead author of the study, in the NASA release.

Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones have all famously avoided press and filmmakers for decades, taking little to no interest in officially sanctioning a film about the band’s origins. Bernard MacMahon managed to clear one of the most difficult hurdles by getting Page to agree to meet.

Mysteriously arriving at the meeting holding several shopping bags, Page sat down to listen to MacMahon’s storyboard pitch for Becoming Led Zeppelin, and upon arriving at the part of the story when Page and Plant met, the guitarist interjected, asking the filmmaker what band he was in at the time.

“Hobbstweetle,” MacMahon nervously uttered.

“Very good. Carry on,” Page nodded.

Clearing several more hurdles was the key to the mystery Page arrived with in his hands. “[He] opened the shopping bags to show he had brought his old diaries, dating back to the ‘60s.” He was in.

Days later, Page called MacMahon, asking if he’d like to accompany him to Pangbourne, a village of great import when it comes to the history of Led Zeppelin; it is, after all, where the band first rehearsed.

Page later revealed that was the final test. Had MacMahon and his team said no, the film was off. He said yes, though, and later this year, the fruits of his labor will hit the big screen.

According to Vanity Fair, the John Hughes coming of age classic Pretty in Pink hasn’t aged all that well…except for James Spader’s performance! So let’s wish a great big happy 65th birthday to that cad of cads, Steff 🤣

If you’ve got someone you want to shower with all the feels for their birthday, here’s a fun gift idea. Why not have our friends Nick and Roy, from the Totally Useless Information podcast, put together a custom audio birthday greeting!

They’ll scour the internet to find interesting information about the day your special someone was born. Check it out!

From Snoopy and Woodstock to Laverne and Shirley, we’ve seen a lot of epic friendships grace the screen.

Some of them even felt like our own friends. Well, it’s time to find out how well you know them with today’s best pals trivia! Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 Amazon eGift Card ;)

Winner will be notified Monday afternoon—keep an eye on your inbox!*

Have a great weekend Staker!

Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


*SEE FULL STAKE TRIVIA CONTEST RULES HERE.