Culture

Somehow, a distressed dolphin knew he could trust the pregnant lady on the boat

One chaotic moment at sea becomes one of the most-watched wildlife clips of the year.

A story with an injured dolphin, blood-sucking parasites, and a pregnant woman can go any number of ways, and most of them are the things of nightmares. But this is the Daily Good. So, without spoiling things, it is safe to say you can unclench your shoulders.

In this story by Adam Albright Hanna, we meet Nicole Isaacs, who thought she was out for a low-stakes ocean day until a dolphin drifted beside her boat with deep red gashes slicing across its side. Then came the reveal. Two remoras had burrowed into open wounds, and the dolphin was shaking in pain.

Video of the rescue has racked up millions of views, and the finale is almost too cinematic to be real.

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Science

Crying, carrots, and classical conditioning collide inside the womb

A nutritional neuroscientist says taste buds begin choosing sides long before the high chair.

As Robin Williams tells Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting, it's not your fault.

It’s not your fault.

For parents, there’s something both universal and uniquely maddening about raising a picky eater. In this story by Kathleen Keller, we meet siblings Sally and Billy, two tiny case studies in the wild mystery of kid palates. Sally will try anything once. Billy only has eyes for mac and cheese.

Keller walks us into the science of nature versus nurture, where bitter flavors make babies grimace on ultrasounds and cilantro can taste like soap if genetics say so. Yet genes only explain a sliver of the saga. Babies start learning flavor cues before they are even born. Carrot juice during pregnancy? It can make future cereal time suspiciously smooth.

There is hope for the Billys out there. With gentle, repeated exposure and zero coercion, most picky eaters eventually widen their menu. Maybe even kimchi mac and cheese if the mood is right.

And what did we learn?

Friday, we revealed the startling footage of plants actually breathing. It’ll take your breath away. (ahem) 

I asked: What percentage of Earth’s oxygen do land plants produce? How many of you picked up on the keyword “land” there?

• 10% - Not as much as people think. (9.2%)

• 100% - Where else could it come from? (23.9%)

• 50% - They're hugely important. (26.1%) ✅

• 65% - Most of it, but not all. (40.8%)

Less than you thought? Well, according to NOAA, “At least half of the oxygen produced on Earth comes from the ocean, mostly from tiny photosynthesizing plankton.”

Culture

How three once-admired virtues became punchlines

A philosopher unpacks how three words lost their meaning and the quiet power hiding inside them.

In this story by Timothy J. Pawl, we meet three old virtues that have had a terrible PR century: meekness, docility, and condescension. Today, they read like red flags on a dating profile, but they originally described forms of character strength that cultures relied on.

Pawl walks through how meekness meant the opposite of weakness. It was controlled power, like Matt Serra restraining a drunk guy instead of clocking him. Docility wasn’t blind obedience but the ability to learn well without being duped. And condescension once meant meeting people where they are, so they felt respected rather than dismissed.

Somewhere along the linguistic timeline, each word slid from virtue to vice. And Pawl argues that losing these concepts leaves us with a moral blind spot. If we can’t name these strengths, we can’t cultivate them, teach them, or even recognize them in the people we love.

On February 23, 1874, British army officer Major Walter Clopton Wingfield patented a portable “lawn tennis” kit, net, posts, balls, rackets, and rules, marketed under the name Sphairistikè, a word inspired by the Greek for ‘ball-playing’. Tennis-like games already existed (notably indoor “real/royal tennis”), but Victorian Britain was primed for an outdoor version: croquet lawns and clubs were everywhere, lawns were getting smoother thanks to the lawn mower, and vulcanized rubber made balls bouncier and tougher.

Wingfield’s early game would be recognizable, rallies over a net on grass, but featured significant differences, too. The court was often hourglass-shaped, and the net was higher than today’s. Within a few years, standardization arrived: the Marylebone Cricket Club issued early laws, and Wimbledon’s first championship in 1877 helped lock in the rectangular court and familiar scoring.

To this day, tennis scoring is charmingly weird. Historians trace 15–30–40 back to older French traditions (possibly linked to clock quarters), but even Britannica notes there’s no fully satisfying explanation for why 40 replaced 45. Even “love” for zero has competing origin stories. So, ambiguity 15, certainty, love. 

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