Good morning. Hey it’s March 2nd, which means the two least favorite months of the year – at least according to a YouGov poll – are behind us!

So much interesting stuff in this poll:

• December came in as the real coin flip – a lotta people love it, but a lotta people hate it too.
• In the surprise of the century, 10% of people voted August as their least favorite month? August? That’s objectively a good if not great month.
• After March, we’re headed for April, which only 2% of people said was their least favorite. So theoretically it should be the happiest month of the year (the science on this is rock solid, our paper in the NIH will come out next August).

One thing 100% of respondents agreed on though: no matter the month, everyone loves DONUT NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.91 minutes to read.

"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."

–John Wooden (1910-2010)

Jimmy John’s isn’t the only company trying to be known as freaky fast. Southwest Airlines has turned four gates at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport into “innovation zones,” and is currently running a series of experiments that aim to shave five minutes off the time its planes spend at the gate between flights. Which may not seem like much, but when you’re operating 4,000+ flights/day the minutes start to add up fast.

And boarding procedures are the most logical place to try and shave time. Research shows boarding bottlenecks are the biggest detriment to turnaround times, Massoud Bazargan, a professor in the college of business at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told the WSJ. Plus Southwest, which ranked #6 out of nine domestic airlines in on-time arrivals last year, definitely has some room for improvement.

Some experiments the airline is running:

• Adding passenger self-serve kiosks at the gate to try and shorten the line to speak to an agent.
• A group chat between workers at the gate, on the plane, and on the ground to quickly get a handle on things like gate-checked bags.
• Playing music on the jet bridge (because the team’s research found people move faster to up-tempo music). Southwest currently has four soundtracks: disco, EDM, hip-hop and kids’ music.

⏱✈️ Looking ahead… Not every test will be rolled out to Southwest’s 121 airports, but many do end up leading to permanent changes. For instance, the airline’s experiments with unassigned seating more than a decade ago led to its current (and somewhat unique) boarding procedures.

🇳🇬🗳️ Nigerian ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu was named the victor of Saturday’s presidential election. The country’s election commission said Tinubu received 37% of the vote, ahead of his two main competitors: Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition party (29%), and Peter Obi of the Gen Z-backed Labour Party (25%). Both Abubakar and Obi disputed the election results, saying they plan to challenge them through legal and peaceful means. Results showed 26% of registered voters participated in the election, meaning Tinubu was elected president of Nigeria’s 210+ million people with just ~8.8 million votes.

📝 It’s unlikely that the mysterious condition known as “Havana syndrome” came from a weapon or foreign adversary. That’s according to a report published yesterday by US intelligence officials, which didn’t pinpoint an exact cause for the wide range of symptoms – including severe headaches, fatigue, and memory loss – that have been reported by 1,500+ US federal employees since the first cases emerged in Havana, Cuba, just over six years ago. The report says the incidents were “probably” caused by a combination of factors, including pre-existing medical conditions, conventional illnesses, and environmental issues.

🇮🇷 Over 350 students were hospitalized across Iran yesterday, in a fresh set of suspected poisoning attacks targeting schoolgirls. More than 1,000 girls across 40+ schools in Iran have been poisoned by toxic gas since November, with a majority of victims ending up in the hospital with complaints of being unable to breathe (though no deaths have been reported). Iranian officials had initially dismissed the incidents as isolated – but on Tuesday, they described them as a series of intentional attacks targeting female students, and said a government investigation was underway. Some Iranians have speculated that schoolgirls are being poisoned as payback for their role in ongoing mass protests, which began following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Ahmini last September, per the BBC.

🌎🤪 The world’s a crazy old place, and if there’s one thing we can discern about YOU, a loyal Donut reader, it’s that you appreciate a break from the chaos – but still like to be in the loop.

Well, our friends at The Progress Network are taking a new approach to current events. They report on the progress being made on today’s most pressing issues with their weekly newsletter, “What Could Go Right?”

• Thoughtfully arranged by a collective made up of 100+ scholars, writers, and innovators, The Progress Network speaks to a better future in a world dominated by negative voices.

🙌 Plus it’s free! Sign up today, and they’ll send you a reading and listening guide to help you understand the remarkable progress humans have made in just the past few decades. (Spoiler alert: There’s a lot!)

Augment your balanced perspective on your news today, and give The Progress Network a try.

Eli Lilly, one of the world’s top-three insulin producers, yesterday announced plans to cap the out-of-pocket costs of its insulin at $35/month for all US patients, regardless of insurance status. The company also said it would cut the list prices for its two most-prescribed insulin products, Humalog and Humulin, by 70%.

⏩ Driving the moves… In an interview with CNN, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said the decision came as a result of conversations between the company and congressional members from both parties about insulin prices in the US, which have increased by ~9x over the past two decades.

• In 2018, one vial of insulin – which lasts about 10 to 15 days – cost an average of $98.70 in the US, higher than any other country. In second place? Japan, with an average cost of $14.40 per vial.

📸 Big picture: With US costs so high, some of the 8.4 million Americans using insulin injections for diabetes have been spending a large percentage of their income on the medicine. Many are also forced to ration its use due to the price tag.

• A peer-reviewed study from last year found 14+% of all daily insulin users in America spent at least 40% of their income on the medicine, after accounting for food and housing.
• A separate peer-reviewed study published in November found 1.3 million Americans rationed their insulin use in 2021 due to its high cost.

Like much of today’s internet, we take IMDb.com for granted. In December 2022, it was the 57th most popular website in the world, attracting 583.1 million visits from people seeking answers from the site’s database of nearly 1 million TV shows and movies.

🤔 But where did all of that information come from? It wasn’t just always… online. And studios don’t exactly provide massive spreadsheets titled “all_the_stuff.xls.”

Instead, IMDb, which launched in 1993, aka six years before Google and eight before Wikipedia, was one of the internet’s earliest and enduring efforts of crowdsourcing. To date, 100% of IMDb’s information has been collected and added by its users.

Though it isn’t exactly an egalitarian enterprise. Of IMDb’s 84 million total users, only a small percentage of “supercontributors” supply most of the data. For example, last year’s top ten users supplied 23 million pieces of data, or 5% of the total info on the site.

🎥 So, who are these people?... Wired Magazine recently profiled a few top contributors:

• Joe Wawrzyniak: The all-time leader in written biographies (over 3,000), Wawrzyniak focuses on early film stunt actors, niche horror writers, and dog actors.
• Les Adams: After digitizing his vast collection of 1930-1960s film sales brochures, Adams added 890,000 pieces of information, including almost 7,000 plot summaries.
• Ines Papa: The most prolific contributor of all time with 22 million additions, Papa is an enigma in the IMDb world; no one knows who he/she is, but many suspect foul play (automation).

💬 Quoted…​​ “[DART’s success] builds optimism about humanity’s capacity to protect the Earth from an asteroid threat.”

After five months of analyzing the data from its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – where NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid at high speeds – the agency concluded a similar mission can effectively alter the trajectory of a potentially hazardous asteroid headed towards Earth. Though this isn’t exactly a spur-of-the-moment thing: the agency said it would need to be warned at least several years – and preferably decades – before the asteroid’s projected impact.

🦋 Stat of the Day: 50 years = how long it had been since anyone saw a giant lacewing (pictured above) in eastern North America, before Penn State professor Michael Skvarla came across a specimen outside an Arkansas Walmart in 2012. So why are we reporting on this now?

• Well, Skvarla had initially misidentified the bug as a common antlion. But when he used it for an in-class demonstration in 2020, he slowly realized – along with the rest of his class – that the specimen was actually a super-rare insect that dates back to the Jurassic era, per a recently published study co-authored by Skvarla himself.

🤯 Did You Know?... There are 292 different ways to make change for a dollar.

📖 Worth a Read: Here's why you should make a habit of having more fun → (NPR)

What single act can get you closer to your goals, boost your memory, heal the past, and improve relationships/interactions? You guessed it! Journaling 📖✍️.

If you’re not already on the journaling bandwagon, you can hop on today while making a difference with our good pals at The Scribes.

• Since launching, they’ve donated over 13,000 notebooks to students in need. One donated for every one sold.👏

📚 The Scribes crafts their journals with the same thoughtfulness and dedication that they apply toward their social initiatives. Premium materials, sound construction, and writing prompts that provoke reflection so you get the most out of your journaling sessions.

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• ☝️ The finalists for the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards were unveiled this week; winners of the annual competition's ten professional categories will be announced on April 13.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed mixed yesterday (S&P: -0.5%; Dow: +0.02%; Nasdaq: -0.7%). | Salesforce stock rose 16% in extended trading following the company's release of its Q4 2022 earnings report. | Tesla held its 2023 Investor Day yesterday; the company’s stock dropped more than 5% in after-hours trading.
• 🚘 Nissan is recalling more than 700,000 of its Rogue and Rogue Sport SUVs over an issue that could turn off the engine while they're in motion; the Rogue was the eighth-best-selling used vehicle in the US last year, per Autoweek.
• ✈️ Delta Airlines and its pilots agreed yesterday to a contract that grants a 34% raise over the next four years.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📱 TikTok has added a feature aimed at limiting usage to 60-minutes/day for children under 18.
• 🎭 Stranger Things is headed to the stage; Stranger Things: The First Shadow will open in late 2023 on London’s West End.
• 🏈 Jalen Carter, a former Georgia football star and projected top-5 pick in next month’s NFL draft, had a warrant issued for his arrest yesterday on charges of reckless driving and racing in connection to a January crash that killed two people, including one of Carter’s former teammates.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 💉 An FDA committee this week recommended the agency approve the world’s first RSV vaccines, from Pfizer and GSK, for Americans ages 60+; the FDA, which typically follows the advice of its committee, will make a final decision on each shot later this year.
• 🧠 An international team of scientists led by Johns Hopkins University has proposed the development of a biological computer powered by human brain cells, which could theoretically outperform existing silicon-based machines while using less energy.
• 🚶 11 minutes of exercise every single day would prevent 1 in 10 premature deaths worldwide, per a new peer-reviewed study from University of Cambridge researchers.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• ⚖️ Vanessa Bryant, the widow of NBA legend Kobe Bryant, reached a $28.9 million settlement with Los Angeles County in a lawsuit over photos taken of her husband and daughter's bodies following their fatal 2020 helicopter crash.
• 😊 America’s happiest city is Fremont, California, followed by San Jose (CA), Madison (WI), Overland Park (KS), and San Francisco (CA), per an annual survey from WalletHub.
• ✈️ A JetBlue plane took “evasive action” on Monday to avoid an aircraft crossing the runway at Boston’s Logan International Airport; it represents at least the fifth close call between planes at US airports so far this year. (Bonus: Facts about midair collisions.)

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Yesterday we covered the oral arguments in a pair of Supreme Court cases seeking to overturn the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 worth of federal student-loan debt for certain borrowers.

❓ Our question to you: Do you support the Biden administration's plan to cancel some federal student-loan debt?

• 👍 Yes: 46%
• 👎 No: 42%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 12%

Click here to read some of the best responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 11,480 votes and 1,017 longform responses.

We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week.

• Massachusetts Teacher Charged After Crypto Mining Operation Discovered in School Crawl Space → (Engadget)
• Hate your signature? Try plastic surgery for autographs → (AP News)
• Dutch cop monitoring “spy balloon” realizes it’s bird poo on his windshield → (NL Times)
• Engineers break Guinness World Record with 289-foot paper airplane flight → (UPI)

❄️ Childhood flashback, incoming: There's nothing quite like going outside during the first snowfall of the year and building the perfect snowman (if you're fortunate enough to live in a state that provides the privilege, that is😉).

For many children in treatment at Children’s Hospital Colorado, however, being outside in the cold is not an option. But that's where the team at Generation Wild comes in; they ensure each child's snowman can still come to life. 

🖍☃️ Giving Frosty a run for his money... For the third year in a row, children in treatment have the opportunity to draw their ideal snowmen for volunteers to construct outside the hospital. 

• The initiative not only brings joy to the hospital staff and children, but encourages healthy Colorado families to get outside and enjoy their environment. 

The world's largest glacier, pictured above, measures a whopping 200 miles long and 50 miles wide. Can you name it?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

The Lambert Glacier