When Popcorn Wasn’t Allowed in Movie Theaters

Even a terrible movie can be salvaged when the popcorn is hot and buttered. In fact, popcorn is so important to the experience that some people even pick the movie theater based on the popcorn. Popcorn can make or break a movie, but it wasn’t always that way. It took some time for popcorn and movies to go together. Long before the corporate multiplexes, movie theaters wanted to demonstrate an air of sophistication to audiences, similar to that of an opera house. The idea was to make the movies feel like going to see a live show, so they decked out their facilities with plush carpeting and extravagant decor. All those fancy adornments were expensive, and the last thing owners wanted were sticky drinks on the seats, stray popcorn kernels on the floor, and greasy fingers on the arm rests. Besides, concessions were thought to be “beneath” the high-brow entertainment movie theaters were offering. There was also the issue of noise. Early films were silent, and even though they were often accompanied by live musicians, theater owners didn’t want patrons crunching on popcorn during the show. By the 1930s, when movies were being made with sound, theater owners began allowing independent popcorn vendors to sell in their lobbies. Once the theater owners saw that vendors were raking in around $14,000 a year ($300,000 today), it wasn’t long before they made concession stands a part of their movie theaters. Today, movie theaters earn approximately $2 billion annually on popcorn alone.

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Burger King Says Its Chicken Nuggets Needed A Total Overhaul

Burger King has spent the last few years reworking everything from the Whopper to its restaurants. Now, the chain is turning its attention to something considerably smaller: the chicken nugget. Starting September 1, Burger King is rolling out a completely redesigned chicken nugget recipe after reevaluating nearly every part of the product, including the chicken, marinade, breading, dipping sauces and even the packaging. During development, Burger King brought in customers to test and refine the recipe, including what the chain described as some of its toughest critics: kids. The overhaul extends to the dipping situation, too. Burger King will introduce a limited-time Special Savory Sauce, while its Honey Mustard has been reformulated to taste richer and creamier and its Sweet & Sour sauce received a re-balanced flavor profile. The nuggets will also arrive in cardboard boxes instead of bags, a move intended to keep them hotter for longer. It follows a similar packaging change Burger King made to its recently upgraded Whopper, which received a new bun and creamier mayo as part of the chain’s broader effort to improve its core menu. The timing makes the nugget makeover particularly interesting, as Burger King recently outperformed McDonald’s and Wendy’s in sales.

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Death By Coconut

When visiting Hawaii or other tropical locations, you may be warned to watch out for falling coconuts. In fact, you may have even heard that you’re more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than by a shark. This utterly untrue statement has been a long-standing myth, but its origin is quite interesting. According to Hawaiian newspapers, in the last 200 years Hawaiian sharks have introduced only 10 people to their maker. Ten seems like a suspiciously low number, but what's even lower are incidences of coconuts killing someone. So far, there have only been two incidents where someone was killed by a falling coconut. So where did the idea that coconuts kill more people than sharks come from? It can be traced back to 2001 and a man with a motive. George Burgess, a shark researcher at the University of Florida, had been asked to speak at a NOAA-sponsored press conference about shark attacks. The timing couldn’t have been worse, because 2001 had been a bad year for shark attacks. Like a good politician, George decided someone needed to be thrown under the bus, so he made the statement: “Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks.” The press ran with that statement and the public has believed it ever since. The truth is, these days in Hawaii you’re much more likely to die from a shark attack than from a falling coconut.

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What Everyone Got Wrong About Growing Older

Eggs were the enemy for most of the 20th century. One yolk supposedly meant clogged arteries. Then the science reversed itself quietly, and it turned out that dietary cholesterol barely affects blood cholesterol for most people. Aging built up a similar stack of confident rules that nobody ever audited. A 2021 an AARP survey found that 58% of adults over 40 believe cognitive decline is simply inevitable. It turns out that underlying research doesn’t support that belief. Here are some other myths about growing older that have been perpetuated but have no science to back them up.

NEUROPLASTICITY CLOCKS OUT AT AGE 60

Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. In other words, old dogs don’t learn new tricks. The reality is, old dogs learn new tricks constantly, at least the human kind. Exercise and continued learning keep the brain forming new neural connections well past the age of 60. 

MEMORY SLIPS MEANS DEMENTIA

A forgotten name and an actual dementia diagnosis are not remotely the same event. A major study identified 14 separate risk factors for cognitive decline, which is strange if the whole process were as fixed as people assume.

WITH AGE COMES MUSCLE LOSS

Sarcopenia —  the age-related, progressive loss of muscle mass, strength, and physical function — gets treated as a locked door past a certain birthday. However, resistance training research keeps kicking that door back open, recording real strength and mass gains in participants well into their 80s and 90s. That shouldn’t be possible if the process were actually finished decades earlier the way it’s usually described.

WEIGHT LOSS IS HARD AFTER A CERTAIN AGE BECAUSE YOUR METABOLISM SLOWS

Slower doesn’t mean sealed. Weight outcomes still ride mostly on activity level, muscle mass, and diet, three variables that stay adjustable at any age, regardless of what the metabolic rate is doing on its own. 

OSTEOPOROSIS IS INEVITABLE WITH AGING

Two-thirds of women over 50 don’t have osteoporosis, despite the assumption that it’s inevitable once a woman crosses that age. 

Overall, most of the myths surrounding age seem to center on inevitability. People believe that it's inevitable that they will gradually crumble into dust as their lives become increasingly unbearable, boring, passionless, and painful. Although certain aspects of health might decline with age, none of the above is inevitable for everyone. As we have discovered, a positive psychological outlook on aging can benefit the physical aspects of aging as well. 

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