💬 Quoted: "For each match-up, vote for the bear you believe best exemplifies fatness and success in brown bears.”

Fat Bear Week, an annual March Madness-style contest put on by Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska to determine the chonkiest bear of them all, officially begins at noon.

Meet the contestants: There are 11 competitors, with names ranging from 128 Grazer (the defending champ) to 32 Chunk to 164 Bucky Dent. The biggest adult male brown bears often weigh 1,200+ pounds in the late summer and fall, up from 700–900 lbs mid-summer, while adult females are smaller by one-third to one-half on average, largely due to the energetic costs of raising cubs.

• Bears fatten up throughout the summer to survive winter hibernation, where they can lose about one-third of their body weight, according to the National Park Service.
• Fun fact: Bears don’t necessarily sleep the entire time they hibernate – but for months, they don’t eat or drink, and rarely urinate or defecate (if at all).

This week’s contest is off to a deadly start: In a prime example that nature truly is metal, this year’s bracket was released one day later than scheduled after a male bear killed a female bear – on livestream, with people from around the world watching.

📸 Big picture: Last year’s Fat Bear Week saw ~1.4 million votes cast from 100+ countries. You can cast your vote for this year’s contest here, and follow the contestants on Big Brother-style live cams here.

🇺🇸🧓 Stat(s) of the Day: Former President Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old yesterday, marking the first time an American president has lived a full century. Carter, who served one presidential term from 1977-1981 before later winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian efforts, has remained in home hospice care for the past 19 months. Overall, the former president has lived through 40% of US history since the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, and has seen the US population nearly triple in his lifetime.

🤔 Did You Know? Erwin Schrödinger proposed his famous “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment – in which a cat in a sealed box is both alive and dead until viewed by a conscious observer – to illustrate how he thought some people were misinterpreting quantum theory. In other words: Schrödinger was pointing out the absurdity of quantum theorists who believed the cat could be both alive and dead at the same time.

📰 Worth a Read: Inside the economics of corporate swag → (The Hustle)