At NPSC we know that one of the best ways to keep your brain healthy is to learn new things. Unfortunately, with all of the information available to us, it can feel almost impossible to find the time to sift through the web to find the gems.

So, we’ve decided to do it for you! Every Friday, you can find five new articles or videos from the week that will stretch your mind, fuel your spirit, and feed your brain.

“THE TOUGHEST OUT” by Wayne Drehs, espn.com

“Love and resiliency fuel Georgia softball player Kendall Burton.”

“HOW THINKING LIKE A C STUDENT MADE ONE ENTREPRENEUR MORE SUCCESSFUL” by Julie Compton, nbcnews.com

“You only need to make the right decision about 70 percent of the time to be successful.”

“CAN YOU SOLVE THE ‘PINK TRIANGLE’ MATH PROBLEM THAT’S STUMPING THE INTERNET?” by Alvin Ward, mentalfloss.com

“Fortunately, hundreds of problem solvers were game to give the problem a try, and share how they came up with their answers with the Twitterverse—some of whom went full on Good Will Hunting on the problem…”

“WHAT TO REALLY EAT ON CINCO DE MAYO” by Shaylyn Esposito, smithsonianmag.com

“Put down the margarita and tacos and pick up a chalupa.”

“WHY CAN’T WE FIGURE OUT HOW THE VIKINGS CROSSED THE ATLANTIC?” by Jessica Leigh Hester, atlasobscura.com

“Crystals may have helped them navigate—or maybe not.”

Since yesterday was “Take Your Child to Work Day,” we put our daughters in charge of creating this week’s Brain Food. We may be biased, but we think that this might be the best Brain Food yet!

“HE JUST KEEPS RUNNING: MAN DRESSED AS FORREST GUMP RUNS BLAZING FAST GUINNESS RECORD” by Cathal Dennehy, runnersworld.com

“Rob Pope has been crossing the U.S. to mimic his favorite character’s journey.”

“HOW POETRY AND MATH INTERSECT” by Evelyn Lamb, smithsonianmag.com

“Artists and poets have long been inspired by the mathematical patterns found in nature—for instance, the remarkable fact that a sunflower’s seeds follow the Fibonacci sequence. But there are myriad other ways that the realms of poetry and mathematics can intersect.”

“INFINITESIMAL ODDS: A SCIENTIST FINDS HER CHILD’S RARE ILLNESS STEMS FROM THE GENES SHE STUDIES” by Pam Belluck, nytimes.com

“It is an astounding story,” Dr. Riddle said. “A basic researcher working on something that might help humanity, and it turns out it directly affects her child.”

“WHY DO CATS ACT SO WEIRD?” by Tony Buffington, ted.com

“They’re cute, they’re lovable, and judging by the 26 billion views on over 2 million YouTube videos of them, one thing is certain: cats are very entertaining. But their strange feline behaviors, both amusing and baffling, leave many of us asking: Why do cats do that? Tony Buffington explains the science behind some of your cat’s strangest behaviors.”

“HOW 1.7 BILLION STARS WERE MAPPED WITH DAZZLING 3-D” by Nadia Drake, news.nationalgeographic.com

“More than a billion twinkling stars, drifting lazily across the sky as both Earth and our home galaxy revolve, have been mapped in 3-D by the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite.”

At NPSC we know that one of the best ways to keep your brain healthy is to learn new things. Unfortunately, with all of the information available to us, it can feel almost impossible to find the time to sift through the web to find the gems.

So, we’ve decided to do it for you! Every Friday, you can find five new articles or videos from the week that will stretch your mind, fuel your spirit, and feed your brain.

“You Share Everything With Your Bestie. Even Brain Waves.” by Natalie Angier, nytimes.com

“Scientists have found that the brains of close friends respond in remarkably similar ways as they view a series of short videos: the same ebbs and swells of attention and distraction, the same peaking of reward processing here, boredom alerts there.”

“Why Do Bridesmaids Traditionally Wear the Same Dress?” by Kate Horowitz, mentalfloss.com

“…many of these so-called traditions are in fact relatively recent inventions, created or perpetuated by the wedding industry. But other seemingly strange wedding behaviors, like matching bridesmaids’ dresses, go much farther back.”

“What Makes the Advice Column Uniquely American” by Jackie Mansky, smithsonianmag.com

“In Asking for a Friend, Weisberg makes the case that Americans in particular have a penchant for the advice industry.”

“Antarctic Veggies: Practice for Growing Plants on Other Planets” by Menaka Wilhelm, npr.org

“And while growing greens in Antarctica is exciting — for much of the year there’s no fresh produce at Neumayer Station III — Bamsey says the end goal of this project is much farther away. EDEN ISS is a practice round for cultivating food in space.”

“Why Do We Have Eyebrows? They May Be the Reason Our Species Survived” by Philip Perry, bigthink.com

“…our primate ancestors had hair all over their face. Why did it recede everywhere but at these two curvy places just above our eyes?”