Science

Turbulence, tiny pretzels, and one wildly misunderstood risk

The scarier way to travel may actually be the safer one.

I’m a pilot, which you may already know because, like most pilots, I have the unfortunate habit of mentioning it at every opportunity. When I tell people I’m a pilot, I often get the same comment about how dangerous it is. But is it? No.

A plane crashes and it can dominate national news for days. Cars crash so routinely that most don’t make the local news at all. The rarity of air accidents is precisely what makes them loom so large. Add turbulence, 35,000 feet, and zero control beyond the recline of your seat, and suddenly your brain is drafting a will.

In this story by Mihhail Berezovski and Alex Chaparro, researchers compare commercial aviation with the option many nervous flyers choose instead: driving. Our sense of danger is not exactly a precision instrument. And when fear pushes people from the sky onto the highway, some very questionable risk math can follow.

Do you have a GOOD picture to share?

Send us your best images, and we may feature them as the image of the day. Be sure to tell us a bit about your pic.

And what did we learn?

In Friday’s issue, we argued that touching grass doesn’t have to come with a packing list.

So how much nature does a GOOD reader’s day actually contain? A lot more than the average office worker’s. More than 8 in 10 of you are out there with real trees and real dirt every single day, and the forest-screensaver crowd barely registered.

• Real trees, real dirt, every single day. (81.4%)

• Whatever grows in the gaps of a parking lot. (3.2%)

• One extremely loyal houseplant. (13.8%)

• My screensaver is a forest. Close enough. (1.6%)

GOOD reader revellehamilton has the daily prescription down to a science: “I need to go outside in the light, pull a few weeds, enjoy the bird song, trees and flowers every day. I’m 85 and pretty healthy.” Noted, and adding it to the chart.

Health | Courtesy of Upworthy

Society

421 tires, one fed-up farmer, and the most satisfying front-yard surprise in England

You could say he got ‘tired’ of it (ahem).

Stuart Baldwin has spent years cleaning up garbage that isn’t his. As Adam Albright-Hanna reports, the Haydock farmer says illegal dumpers hit his land around 25 times a year, but this latest stunt pushed things into cartoon-villain territory: 421 dumped tires.

After making the discovery, Baldwin checked his CCTV, found the van, and tracked down the man involved. Baldwin is kinder than I am; he gave the tire-dumper a chance to come fix it himself. The guy declined, so Baldwin and a crew of volunteers loaded up every tire and returned the whole squishy mountain to the address linked to the van.

Though obviously funny, it wasn’t just about payback. For farmers, illegal dumping is expensive, exhausting, and deeply disrespectful. Baldwin’s move landed because it turned a familiar story of people abusing someone else’s land into a rare moment of consequences, community applause, and one very literal message: your trash is your problem.

On September 14, 1964, Pop-Tarts went on sale, and their origin story is almost as good as the snack itself. Rival Post had loudly announced plans for a shelf-stable, fruit-filled toaster pastry called Country Squares, but there was one problem: they hadn’t actually gotten it to stores yet. Kellogg’s heard the idea, moved quickly, and beat them to market with its own version.

The first test run sold out, and within a few years Kellogg’s had even figured out how to make frosting that wouldn’t melt in the toaster. Sixty-two years later, Pop-Tarts are still going strong, proving that sometimes being first to announce an idea matters less than being first to actually ship it. 

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

Speaking of flying, and with the NFL back in season, I give you FOOTBALL IN SPACE!

Join the Group Text! Send us your social media gold.