The Biden administration just released the country’s biggest climate report since 2018, outlining the reality of climate change and just how complex its effects can be.
‘The Curse’ review: Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie are here to break your brains
“The Curse” stars Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder as a couple with an upcoming HGTV show, and Benny Safdie plays their producer.
From the bizarre business schemes of Nathan for You to the mind-melting experiments of The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder has always had a knack for interrogating the “reality” behind reality television. Now, he teams up with Benny Safide — co-director of nail-biting films like Uncut Gems and Good Time — to continue breaking our brains with the new scripted series, The Curse.
Starring Emma Stone, Fielder, and Safdie, and produced by A24 and Showtime, The Curse defies easy categorization. It’s the perfect storm of wince-worthy comedy, HGTV spoof, and surreal (and possibly supernatural?) drama, with plenty of commentary on everything from race to social media thrown in for good measure. As tough as it can be to watch at times — I dare you to go five minutes without cringing — there’s no doubt that The Curse is one of the funniest, strangest, and most unsettling shows of the year.
What is The Curse about?
Nathan Fielder, Emma Stone, and Tessa Mentus in “The Curse.”
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
Stone and Fielder play Whitney and Asher Siegel, a married couple at the center of an upcoming HGTV show awkwardly titled Flipanthropy. (Say it three times fast.) Their goal is to build eco-friendly homes in the city of Española, New Mexico, and “revitalize” the community by bringing in upscale coffee chains and jeans stores. It’s textbook gentrification, but Whitney and Asher want to distance themselves from that label. In Whitney’s perfect world, these new businesses will only employ locals, everyone will buy her passive homes, and she and Asher can subsidize any higher rent Española’s current residents may face. “Everybody’s a winner,” Asher tells a local reporter (Tessa Mentus) when she brings up the dreaded “G word.”
Of course, Asher’s blithe statement couldn’t be farther from the truth. The new businesses are more a front for Flipanthropy than they are new staples in Española, and Whitney’s plan to subsidize rent is just a Band-Aid lazily slapped on America’s much bigger issues. Then there are the passive homes themselves, with their garish mirrored facades that Whitney proudly says, “reflect the community.” If anything, the constant reflection is more of a visual nuisance for Asher and Whitney’s neighbors. It doesn’t help that the deceptive mirrors lead to the deaths of birds who fly smack dab into the walls. When bird corpses are a common occurrence around your house, maybe it’s time to rethink whether it’s as environmentally friendly as you claim it is.
Capturing Whitney and Asher’s so-called service work on camera is their producer Dougie Schechter (Safdie). He’ll try anything to make the show as entertaining as possible, no matter the ethics. Take the very first scene, which sees him pouring water on a woman’s face to create the illusion of a tearful response. It’s just one of many exploitative tricks he’ll use on his subjects in order to shape a new reality for the camera. Whitney and Asher are initially put off by these methods, unable to see that they, too, are exploiting the residents of Española.
One of Dougie’s filming plans leads us to The Curse‘s titular malediction. When he sees a young girl named Nala (Dahabo Ahmed) selling sodas in a parking lot, Dougie tells Asher to give her some money, thinking it’ll make good B-roll for the show. Asher hands her the only cash he has on him — a $100 bill — and immediately tries to take it back once they’ve stopped filming. Nala, understandably upset by this turn of events, proceeds to fix her gaze on Asher and deliver three fateful words: “I curse you.”
From there on out, things are… off with Asher, Whitney, and the production. There’s conflict with potential home buyers, complications with Asher and Whitney’s plans to conceive, and even discord in their marriage. Are all these bumps in the road Nala and the curse’s doing? Or were these problems always there, and did Asher and Whitney only start to notice them with the threat of a curse hanging over their heads? (Notably, the two also argue about whether it’s racist to assume Nala is even capable of cursing them.)
The Curse skewers reality TV with surreal stylings and a tinge of horror.
D.J. Arvizo, Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, and Oscar Avila in “The Curse.”
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
The Curse plays with just how real Nala’s curse is over the course of its 10 episodes. Strange events on the set of Flipanthropy are commonplace, yet they could just as easily be attributed to human error as to magic. However, The Curse doesn’t rule out the supernatural outright. Horror-adjacent imagery appears throughout, from the dead birds to long shots tracking characters’ movements that would be right at home in a slasher. Discussions of troubled pregnancy invoke the subgenre of motherhood horror, and composer John Medeski (working with music producer and frequent Safdie collaborator Daniel Lopatin) crafts a soundscape that wrings unease out of even the most mundane moments.
The ambiguity of the curse plays into the show’s larger fascination with how we engineer and interact with false narratives. Reality TV serves as the prime source of artifice here, with Asher and especially Whitney crafting how their marriage and their work comes across onscreen. If enough people believe the fantasy they’re being sold, does that make it true? And if you spend your relationship living for the camera, how can you tell what’s real or not?
To further hammer home these ideas of warped reality, The Curse makes liberal use of mirror shots and distorted mirror imagery. It pairs these with shots of conversations framed in windows or doorways, or filmed from a great distance, lending the show a voyeuristic quality. What are we truly meant to be seeing?
The Curse‘s main characters will make you cringe and laugh (but mostly cringe).
Emma Stone in “The Curse.”
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
The Curse‘s preoccupation with artifice manifests itself most in Whitney. She cares so much about her self-image that she forces Asher to recreate their cutest moments beat-for-beat for her Instagram followers. Her activism is a facade as well — although she may not be self-aware enough to realize that. She fervently claims to support Española’s residents, including the Pueblo people of New Mexico. However, she frequently uses and tokenizes the Native Americans she meets, like her artist friend Cara Durand (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin). In a show full of moments that make you want to crawl out of your skin, Whitney’s interactions with Cara are among the most horrifying.
Asher is no stranger to fantasy either, with The Curse relishing unpicking his self-imposed ideas of masculinity. Between jokes about penis size and being called Whitney’s “jester” instead of her “king,” Asher goes through the humiliation gauntlet with a brave face that is always seconds from slipping. Then there’s Dougie, whose sleazy producer persona masks a deeper sadness and some wildly unhealthy coping mechanisms.
With these three characters and their conflicting senses of self firmly in place, The Curse simmers with an at-times unbearable awkwardness. Will you feel a combination of embarrassment and disgust toward Whitney, Asher, and Dougie’s actions? Yes. Will you occasionally recognize yourself in them? Horrifyingly, also yes. When broader moments of comedy arise — like the aforementioned penis jokes — they come as a welcome, tension-breaking relief. Yet The Curse refuses to let you get comfortable for long. Often, these laugh-out-loud jokes will resurface down the line in an even more squirm-worthy scene, as if The Curse is wielding your own prior comfort against you.
Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie make for an excellent trio in The Curse.
Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder, and Benny Safdie in “The Curse.”
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
Credit: Richard Foreman Jr. / A24 / Paramount+ with Showtime
The Curse wouldn’t work half as well as it does without the total commitment of Stone, Fielder, and Safdie, who make for an unlikely (but well-matched) supergroup. Stone has already proven her comedic chops ten times over with films like Easy A and The Favourite, but The Curse may be her funniest turn yet. Whitney’s eco-influencer jargon is gold in Stone’s hands, but she blends it with a discomfiting sense of artificiality completely in sync with the tone Fielder and Safdie have created. It’s pitch-perfect work, and when paired with the release of Poor Things, it helps mark a banner year for Stone.
In a departure from shows like Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, Fielder is not playing a version of himself but rather an entirely new character. Still, you’ll recognize elements of his prior performances in Asher’s awkward deadpan. He’s a total punching bag for the show, with Flipanthropy focus groups wondering why Whitney would even marry him. That disbelief makes it all the funnier — and uncomfortable, naturally — when Asher inevitably loses his cool. Prepare yourself for some angry, desperate rants from Fielder that will leave you speechless, and some especially inspired physical comedy in later episodes.
As Dougie, Safdie is slippery and scummy, the ideal contrast to Whitney’s earnest(ish) idealism. While shooting Flipanthropy, he reads as a dirtbag Machiavellian schemer looking to get the perfect shot — even at the expense of people like Asher. But in his personal life, he’s a flailing mess. Here, Safdie must shoulder some of The Curse‘s most painful revelations, resulting in tragi-comic scenes like a first date gone off the rails.
These three off-the-wall performances combine with The Curse‘s ambitious genre-bending to make for one of 2023’s most original TV series yet. It’s densely layered with bizarro comedy, bold set pieces, and pertinent social criticism. Yes, Asher, Whitney, and Dougie’s convictions may be hollow, but The Curse is filled to the brim with things to say — and some absolutely wild ways to say them.
Could humans have babies in space safely? Here’s what we know.
Some scientists seek to solve the potential problems caused by microgravity and cosmic radiation for human reproduction in space.
The recently married couple tip their bellhop, drop their suitcases, and breathe out a sigh as they fall back on the bed. They wanted a gramworthy honeymoon, and for a few million dollars, they’ve got it.
Once their initial travel sickness wears off, they’re feeling as frisky as any other newlyweds. Perhaps the only thing that could distract them from the marital act now is that incredible cabin view of infinite space, and the faint reminders of civilization glinting at them from Earth, some 250 miles below.
If space hotels come to fruition in the coming years or more realistically decades, cosmic vacations won’t be a sci-fi fantasy. Even without hotels, longer orbital space flights all but guarantee tourists opportunities to join the 60-miles-high club. It’s the “souvenirs” these couples could bring home that have a few researchers worried — enough to publish a public report on the risks associated with human conception in the future space tourism sector.
Bottomline: No one knows whether babies could be conceived in space without detrimental consequences to their health — there simply isn’t enough research. While professional astronauts likely have a good grasp on why they shouldn’t set out to make a starchild, less-informed travelers might not demonstrate the same level of restraint.
“It’s going to be a very strong magnet for these couples. They’ll want to be maybe in the history books, like, ‘Hey, we created the very first naturally conceived baby in space,'” said Egbert Edelbroek, CEO of the space research company SpaceBorn United and one of the co-authors, “but they shouldn’t want to.”
The paper published in April captured some buzz — even some snickers from late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who called them “nine very lonely authors” — for broaching a little-discussed issue. Though the intent was to get the burgeoning space tourism sector to think about how to discourage space sex that leads to pregnancy (Not sex altogether, one of the researchers assured Mashable. They’re not prudes.), the topic brings into focus an existential problem: How could humans ever leave Earth in the event of a global crisis if people don’t know how to procreate in space or any other world?
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said his ultimate vision is to use a fleet of Starships to send 1 million humans to Mars by 2050. But if those pioneers die off because they can’t have children, or healthy children, what’s the point?
“They’ll want to be maybe in the history books, like, ‘Hey, we created the very first naturally conceived baby in space,’ but they shouldn’t want to.”
Will the first long-duration space journeys involving astronauts and their descendants have to be planned as one-way trips?
Credit: Steven Hobbs / Stocktrek Images via Getty Images illustration
Credit: Steven Hobbs / Stocktrek Images via Getty Images illustration
Gravity and radiation levels pose challenges
In spaceflight, humans are exposed to different levels of gravity — sometimes less, sometimes more. Think about those roller coaster warnings at amusement parks prohibiting pregnant people from riding. They’re in part because extra G-forces can lead to premature separation of the placenta from the wall of the uterus.
On the other hand, little or no gravity like on the International Space Station presents its own challenges: For the past 60 years, NASA has been working on how to keep adults healthy in weightlessness. As it is, astronauts are expected to exercise at least two hours a day on a treadmill or stationary bicycle to combat bone and muscle deterioration.
Research also suggests that cosmic radiation, like other sources of radiation, could damage DNA, reproductive organs, and sperm and egg cells. In women, depending on the amount of exposure, that might mean sterility, ovarian failure, and cancer, which may lead to early menopause or death. In pregnancy, the risks could include miscarriage and premature births. For men, too much radiation could also lead to reduced sperm count or sterility, though some scientific findings indicate sperm could be safely stored in space for a time.
When it comes to embryos and fetuses, the news is just as grim. Radiation can cause growth delays, cognitive impairments, deformities, and higher risks of newborn death.
“We’ve got some ideas that there will be quite a lot of negative issues in the development of bones and musculature,” said David Cullen, professor of astrobiology and space biotechnology at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. “And all these other kinds of things inherently are driven by a combination of genetics, biochemistry, and responses to the local environment. So if you change that local environment, you expect all of those development states to be affected in some way — and, most likely, in a negative way.”
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Startup seeks to make reproduction in space work
The Dutch entrepreneur Edelbroek wants to make human reproduction possible in space by first taking sex out of the equation. His company, SpaceBorn United, may be the first in the world planning space-based research on in vitro fertilization, though it’s hard to know what the often-secretive Chinese government may be doing.
Through a series of missions, the startup wants to conduct experiments observing the effects of partial gravity on embryo development. The company, which has about 30 mostly part-time employees now, would start with animal studies before advancing to human cells. In August, SpaceBorn United partnered with Independence-X, a Malaysian space exploration company, to conduct a suborbital drop test of its re-entry capsule containing biological samples.
So far SpaceBorn United has developed a miniature IVF and embryo incubator using microfluidics technology. The prototype hardware, which looks like a CD, has multiple tiny channels that hold sperm and eggs. The disc spins to simulate different loads of gravity while the device automatically impregnates embryos. Now the venture is working with a German company, Atmos Space Cargo, to launch mouse embryos on an orbital test flight by the end of next year, Edelbroek said.
SpaceBorn United has developed a miniaturized IVF and embryo incubator using microfluidic technology.
Credit: SpaceBorn United illustration
Credit: SpaceBorn United illustration
The logistics of doing these experiments are complicated. Because the team needs to work with freshly harvested female cells, the company must have last-minute access to the rocket payload, making ride-sharing programs unfeasible. The cells only remain fertile for four to six hours.
But private industry will have to lead the way on space reproduction research, he said, because NASA and other government space agencies have onerous political challenges to navigate before engaging in such studies. In the United States, for instance, sex is already a taboo subject. Add on top of that the nation’s complex culture war over reproductive rights, and the hurdles are monumental. Experts say the U.S. space agency isn’t likely to get Congress on board with funding such endeavors.
They “can only work with baby steps — with fruit flies and frog eggs and some rodents — and never, never even speak about doing it with human reproductive cells,” he said.
While the experiment was largely deemed a reproduction success story in the mass media, tadpoles raised in microgravity were documented as having enlarged heads and eyes in scientific journals.
Credit: Tom Trower / NASA Ames Research Center
Credit: Tom Trower / NASA Ames Research Center
Most of the company’s investors are in the fertility sector because of the potential to improve assisted reproductive technology on Earth. They’ve also received interest in collaborating from neophyte spacefaring nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, that may want the prestige of being involved in a first like human embryo conception in space.
In the same vein as the space burial market, SpaceBorn United anticipates there will be affluent customers interested in paying for space-fertilized babies long before humans are even living somewhere beyond Earth.
“We’ve had other suggestions, like space cats and dogs,” Edelbroek said.
The prototype hardware, which looks like a CD, has multiple mini channels that hold semen and eggs.
Credit: SpaceBorn United
Credit: SpaceBorn United
Ethics of human reproduction research in space
Though the ultimate goal may be to one day make natural conception and childbirth possible in space, doing so won’t be possible anytime soon, said Alexandra Proshchina, a neuroscientist at the Petrovsky National Research Center for Surgery in Moscow.
She and her colleagues have worked on animal reproduction studies in microgravity through several missions organized by the Institute of Biomedical Problems. In the 1990s, they participated in a Russian-Canadian experiment on the BION-10 biosatellite involving clawed frog tadpoles and an 11-day Russian-American experiment on space shuttle Atlantis centered on the development of rat embryos.
“(They) can only work with baby steps — with fruit flies and frog eggs and some rodents — and never, never even speak about doing it with human reproductive cells.”
Then in 2014, along with Rustam Berdiev, a physiologist at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, they performed the world’s first attempt to mate ornate day geckos in spaceflight on the Russian FOTON-M4 satellite, though the lizards died due to difficulties with the mission. The team has since started preparing an orbital experiment involving veiled chameleon embryos, but the project has stalled, in part because of funding challenges, researchers told Mashable.
Likely private industry will have to lead the way on space reproduction research because NASA and other government space agencies have political challenges to navigate before engaging in such studies.
Credit: DEA / L. RICCIARINI / De Agostini via Getty Images
Credit: DEA / L. RICCIARINI / De Agostini via Getty Images
During pregnancy, women adapt to changes in body mass, hormone levels, metabolism, and a host of other biological processes that put significant strain on their bodies. Even astronauts at peak fitness get spacesick, said Proshchina, who, along with morphologist Victoria Gulimova, responded to Mashable in writing to overcome translation issues.
“Subjecting pregnant women to such physical stress is not very humane,” Proshchina said. “Moreover, it would be unacceptable to put the baby at risk.”
Even if a baby could be delivered safely in space, scientists know even less about the impacts of the space environment on children and teenagers, said Alex Layendecker, a former Air Force space operations officer with a doctorate in human sexuality. He has recently founded the Astrosexological Research Institute, a nonprofit organization aimed at facilitating studies of sex and reproduction in space.
Cell division is more rapid in children than adults. When ionizing radiation penetrates a human body, it destroys bonds and can lead to cancer. If a child were to develop cancer, it might spread faster in outer space conditions than it would for an adult, he said.
Even if a baby could be delivered in space, scientists know even less about the impacts of the space environment on children and teenagers.
Credit: A. Martin UW Photography via Getty Images
Credit: A. Martin UW Photography via Getty Images
In terms of ethics, taking a minor away from the planet, even just for a space cruise, would cross a line, given the lack of data: Children can’t provide informed consent, yet their lives likely would be at a much higher risk of negative impacts, he said.
Whether a human conceived and born in space would be able to adapt to other planets is a looming unknown. It’s not even clear whether such a child could survive on Earth after coming home, said Gulimova, who also works at the Petrovsky National Research Center for Surgery.
Or, would the first long-duration space journeys crewed with astronauts and their descendants have to be planned as one-way trips?
“There are many questions, and many more ground-based and orbital experiments that will have to be carried out, before happy parents on board the spacecraft hear the first cry of the first citizen of the Universe,” she said.
Boys World reveal their internet obsessions: Bada Lee, manifestation, Petra Collins, and more
Girl group Boys World shares their latest obsessions, including Bada Lee, Petra Collins, perfectly cooked salmon, and manifestation.
For the past three years, Boys World have made moves as a modern-day pop group remixing the sounds and aesthetics of ’90s and 2000s-era R&B. The quintet’s new single, “Gone Girl,” comes on the heels of a national tour, during which the girls admitted they were too busy, you know, being pop stars to do much else.
“I haven’t watched shit, to be honest with you,” Makhyli confesses to Mashable when we ask for her recent watches, “The second I get home I just want to talk with these girls or knock the fuck out.”
But Boys World — Olivia, Lillian, Elana, Makhyli, and Queenie — deliver nonetheless, gushing for over an hour about their favorite artists, recipes, and online obsessions. These pop stars, it turns out, are the sweetest, most candid pop culture junkies around.
Olivia
Olivia: I’ve followed Petra Collins’ work for a while, and I think her visuals are always incredible. The way they executed this whole music video was just so refreshing and very pleasing to my eyes, and I love them working together. The Glee reference of a slushie being thrown on her… I love it when people use stuff that happened in movies and put it in music videos. I love the song. It grew on me a lot.
This is kind of rhetorical, but do you guys want to work with Petra Collins ever?
All: Yes!
Were you into Petra Collins when she was at Rookie?
Olivia: Yes! Rookie mag! I am so upset it’s gone. I have three copies of each volume of Rookie: two I cut up for my journals and one I didn’t touch.
Makhyli: She’s a big collector.
Olivia: You know Mini Brands? I love them! I collect the Disney ones, the food, the little fashion ones. I got so lucky, I got a bag with tiny makeup brushes and a blush. I also have a tiny grand piano on the shelf in our living room, and it has a little stool and sheet music and it opens up. It’s adorable.
What do you love about this Bodies Bodies Bodies edit?
Olivia: It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve gotten to the point where I can quote it like “Mean Girls.” All of Rachel [Sennott’s] lines, the way she delivered them, make me crack up every single time. If I was ever an actress, I would want to have that kind of role.
A lot of you acted as kids, right?
Makhyli: I did musical theater
Elana: I was on a show called SuperWings. And I was also on an American Girl doll YouTube show.
Olivia: We need to all act together.
Makhyli: To be on a show together in general.
Did you guys ever watch S Club 7? They were a British pop group that had their scripted TV show in the early 2000s.
Olivia: No! We’ve never heard of them.
I highly recommend it. Makhyli, what musicals were you into?
Makhyli: Everything. Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Dear Evan Hansen, Annie, Hamilton, Freckleface Strawberry.
Elana
Elana: I love SZA’s new music video.
Makhyli: Ah! I can’t even talk about it.
Elana: I love that album, that got me through winter. SZA has such a unique voice. She’s so talented, and I love her music. So I love watching her music videos. And this one features Justin Bieber.
Queenie: His fine ass.
Makhyli: He was my first CD.
Queenie: My ex-girlfriend has a blanket of him. She has a toothbrush that sings his songs.
Olivia, I read you ran a Dolan Twins Instagram fan page.
Olivia: Yeah, I would tweet as if I was this one pink hat they wore. And then the Dolan Twins were like, “Oh, this is cool.” They will notice me a lot, retweet my tweets, quote them, whatever. When they had a tour I went, and that’s when I was like, “OK, this is when I’m going to show my identity. I’m going to make this my moment. Today’s my reveal. I want you to know who the pink hat is. Now come find me.” And then they knew who I was. Then I started promoting my singing and covers to my fan page audience, and it turned into a career.
Elana: Ice Spice is doing so well. And her personality intrigues me. And she’s from New York. And I just love that. She seems so down to earth. So I was like, “Hey, why not put this on while I do my makeup?”
Queenie: Her personality is showing a lot more now.
Elana: She’s so cute, she seems sweet. I think we’d be friends. It’s so nice to see people around our age doing so well, it’s exciting. And I just like the way she talks, the sound of her voice. It reminds me of home because I’m from Queens. [In this interview] she talks about how she’s touring so much and she’s in different countries so it gets hard to stay in touch [with family and friends].
Do you guys relate to that?
Makhyli: Oh, yeah.
Elana: At the moment definitely [because we are on tour ourselves]. And we also live in LA and some of us have family in different places. So I relate to that.
Is there anything else you’ve been loving lately?
Elana: My favorite YouTuber right now is Monet McMichael. I freaking love her. I found her on TikTok, and now I watch her on YouTube. She should just she seems so sweet. I love to watch people and I’m like, “Oh, I probably would be friends with them.”
Queenie
Queenie: OK, so this salmon. We were preparing for our first week of tour rehearsals, and every day was, like, five hours. I was like, “OK, I need to meal prep.” And I also wanted to save a little bit of money so I wouldn’t have to order anything. I was just scrolling on TikTok, and I found this recipe. I have never made salmon, ever. And so I was like, “OK, fuck it. Let me try something.”
It took me three hours. I was just locked the fuck in — in the kitchen mashing the potatoes, putting it in the oven while setting up the oven, boiling it, and all of a sudden now the salmon’s sizzling, and now I have to make the soy glaze for it. I’m like a fucking chef running around. And then I keep forgetting things. When I tell you the best fucking salmon I ever ate in my entire life. This recipe is insane. I was like, this is illegal. And then the girls’ reactions to it gave me so much confidence.
Olivia: This is the best thing I’ve ever had.
Queenie: And Elana doesn’t even like salmon.
Elana: I don’t but I would eat that every day.
‘This recipe is insane.’
Credit: YouTube/@CookingWithTammy
Credit: YouTube/@CookingWithTammy
Do you cook for the girls often?
Queenie: Not often but I make them Filipino dishes sometimes. The most important one that these girls love is my Filipino spaghetti. And like if I don’t make it my mom usually comes [over] and she’ll make it.
Olivia: What’s that soup?
Queenie: Sinigang. I can’t wait to take them to the Philippines, both on tour and for fun. It’s a different world. I’m not the type to like to go [to places] as a tourist, go to resorts. I feel like if you’re gonna go to another country, experience the local parts, the actual neighborhoods. It’s important to see those things when you go to another country, and not just like the rich areas.
Where would you suggest someone go for their first time in the Philippines?
Queenie: Manila, just because that’s the [main] city. Then [go] anywhere that you can go island hopping because it’s the most beautiful thing. And I feel like you get both worlds there. Because anywhere you travel for island hopping you have to go through mountains and you have to see nature, sometimes you have to fly to it. So it’s just a whole experience. Also, go to the Mall of Asia, one of the biggest malls in the world.
Queenie: I started “Street Woman Fighter” because it’s huge in the dance community in general. JAM Republic is one of the groups that have joined who are like from the U.S. And then there’s this one girl Bada Lee, who everyone’s geeking over saying that she’s fucking fine, and I can abide by that because she is. The way she dances… chef’s kiss.
[Watching her] I am mesmerized. I wish I could dance like that. Looking at people who are at that level is just mind-boggling to me. I love staying updated with the dance battles, and I wish I could be there one day.
Lillian
Lillian: I’ve been a fan of Ari since she came out with this album. And so it was so fun to see her do this 10-year anniversary and remake it as she would do it now. The difference in her vocals… they’re in their prime time right now. Even her tone is a little bit different, I think because of filming Wicked. And people are saying “I can understand what you’re saying now.”
Lillian: I love to put [videos] on when I do my makeup and hear other artists talk about their experiences. You can always learn from it. I just love Victoria, like she’s just the sweetest, and her voice is so nice to listen to. She’s so soft-spoken and was talking about how she grew up shy, and I relate to that a lot. But she’s done all these amazing things and been in all these crazy rooms with crazy artists, and she’s worked on some of the biggest hits. Now she’s finally honing her artistry, which is cool because I love her music, too. Her new album is really good.
Queenie: If I were a solo artist in the future, she’s like the epitome of what I would love to do for a video, like the masc/femme of “On My Mama.” That’s literally what I want to do,
She was also talking about manifesting, that she had been doing it since she was little.
Lillian: She also talks about new motherhood. I love it when people talk about pregnancy or postpartum, what you can go through that’s not so fun. Because I feel like people don’t talk about that much. And then women get pregnant, and they’re like, “This is like the worst time of my life but also the best,” and it’s just very confusing.
Victoria notes how it’s really important to always go up to the mother and give them attention and ask about how they’re doing because most people will just go straight to your belly or the baby. So you just feel invisible, [even though] being the mother to this child is like the best thing in your whole life. So it’s conflicting feelings, and people need to understand because it happens every day.
Makhyli
Makhyli: I’m super into affirmations and manifestation. It’s been big for me since I was tiny. It’s kind of like I grew up on my mom’s side with spirituality and affirmations, and it always just stuck with me. My dad was religious but my mom was spiritual, so I felt I grew up just hating what my mom believed because my dad would be talking in my ear, right?
But then I was like, “Oh, wait, this is sick. I love this. Give me the sage, give me the crystals.” I found what I believe in, who I am at my core. And now I just take it with me everywhere because I feel like [it resonates with me] more. It’s the one thing in life that can always give you hope. Manifesting is something that I can always look forward to no matter where you are in your life, even if you’re at your lowest of lows, you can always manifest something better. That’s what always gets us through.
Religion is finding faith in something else. And manifesting is finding faith in yourself. You’re like a renewable resource. What age were you like, ‘I feel confident that this is actually who I am.’
Makhyli: I think we all manifested being here, but I don’t think I knew that’s what it was like. When I was tiny, like seven, my mom was like, “OK, so when you’re older and go to college…” and I was like, “I’m gonna be on tour.”
And she was like, “OK! I won’t ask you again, I won’t push you.” And she helped me get where I am now. I owe it all to her. She used to be our house mom for a while because I was the youngest. And she’s always been pushing me to work hard and she likes me to be independent, too. But I also call her if I’m like, “What brand of toothpaste do I get?” Ever since I was small, she’s been my best friend. My dad was never really involved. Man, what’s in the air! The last two days we’ve been getting so much closer.
Are all of you guys getting closer?
Makhyli: We’ve been talking so much. I feel like we’re together all the time and sharing a room, we’re up at night. We share a house, but this has brought us back to when we first joined the group and we had bunk beds and we shared one room.
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Sex and reproduction studies in space offer confusing results
Few sex and reproduction studies have happened in space. One thing is clear: the lack of gravity and a protective atmosphere can be dangerous.
Nadezhda used to scuttle around the drab halls of a bureaucratic building in southwestern Russia before she was recruited for an unprecedented experiment in space.
Suddenly, her life of anonymity — just trying to avoid hunger and the thick rubber tread of a boot — was elevated for a higher purpose. She would become a mother, and she would show the world what happens when multiples are conceived in outer space.
When she returned, everyone at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Voronezh, Russia, waited and watched Nadezhda, whose name means “hope,” like the lower-than-lab-rat that she was.
Then, the day arrived: 33 cockroach babies were born, presenting unusual mutations. They were larger, ran faster, and even looked different from their brethren bugs on Earth. While the upper shells of the newborn critters are normally clear, Nadezhda’s brood was already sporting a dark reddish-brown coat.
“It’s like a space horror film in the making, when you think about it,” Alex Layendecker, founder of the Astrosexological Research Institute, told Mashable. “Two random cockroaches disappear into this spacecraft, and they just keep reproducing, and it compounds.”
A Russian space experiment studied cockroach reproduction.
Credit: Yuliia Hurzhos / Getty Images
Credit: Yuliia Hurzhos / Getty Images
But what Layendecker is talking about is not science fiction. The experiment sent up on Roscosmos’ Foton-M bio-satellite in 2007 is one of the few sex and reproduction studies conducted in space. The results are disturbing, and not just because the study involved one of the most despised pests on the planet. It’s a harbinger for the austere challenges space presents for sustaining Earth-based life. Without gravity and Earth’s atmosphere, a security blanket blocking the planet’s inhabitants from high doses of cosmic radiation, baby-making is quite onerous.
On the International Space Station, flying about 250 miles above Earth, astronauts are exposed to radiation levels 100 times higher than on the ground. Yet the space station is still within Earth’s magnetic field, which offers some protection from toxic cosmic rays. Imagine then how venturing out into deep space — like on a trip to Mars or a long stay at the moon — might accelerate damage to human cells.
“To do humans, an actual study with human cells and human embryos, obviously, there are all kinds of checks and balances. Most of the work is done with proxies,” said David Cullen, professor of astrobiology and space biotechnology at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. “By looking at mice (for example), you’re looking at humans indirectly.”
So far no mammals — or any animal with a backbone, for that matter — has completed its life cycle from conception to adulthood in space. There are only sparse, preliminary results on how space affects some of the critical phases of reproduction and early growth, such as fertilization, embryo development, pregnancy, birth, postnatal maturation, and parental care.
“It’s like a space horror film in the making.”
But there’s another problem: The data that do exist usually involve such small sample sizes that it’s difficult to extrapolate what the results would even mean for humans or any other species. Nearly all of the research has been on non-primate animals, with the exception of a human sperm study.
Medaka fish provided the first evidence of mating, fertilization, and hatching of a vertebrate animal’s eggs in space in 1994.
Credit: Koichi Yoshii via Getty Images
Credit: Koichi Yoshii via Getty Images
Medaka fish mating experiments in space
The first evidence of mating, fertilization, and hatching of a vertebrate animal’s eggs in space occurred in 1994 during a 15-day mission aboard NASA space shuttle Columbia.
“Who has had sex in space?” Dr. Shawna Pandya, director of medical research for Above Space Development, asked rhetorically while speaking on a South by Southwest panel in March. “It has been caught on tape, it has happened, and it was four Japanese Medaka fish, for those of you who are into that. Statistically speaking, at least one of you is.”
Medaka, also known as Japanese rice fish, usually live in small ponds, shallow rivers, and rice paddies. They were selected for a space experiment because the breed seems to be more tolerant of weightlessness, unbothered by the lack of a constant “up” or “down” in microgravity.
The experiment resulted in four fish laying 43 eggs. Of them, eight babies hatched in space, and another 30 were born after landing. The offspring seemed normal — with the expected numbers of germ cells found in the ovaries of the newly hatched — and some were able to have their own offspring upon their return to the planet as well.
Looping behaviors were noted in frog larvae on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992, with tadpoles swimming in circles, somersaulting, and darting around in haphazard directions.
Credit: NASA
Credit: NASA
But other fish studies conducted in spaceflight have led to offspring with bizarre mutations. Some young-adult fish have swum in tight circles or in sideways loops. Though U.S. researchers found no significant changes in systems that control balance and orientation among fish studied in spaceflight, Soviet scientists found marked differences in how they formed.
“There have been wasp studies, mice studies, rodent studies, jellyfish, quail eggs. Any species you name, they’ve been studied on Shuttle, Mir, Skylab, [the International Space Station],” Pandya said. “And the data, at best, is conflicting.”
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Frog and tadpole growth and development in space
The same looping behaviors were noted in frog larvae on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992, with tadpoles swimming in circles, somersaulting, and darting around in haphazard directions. The tadpoles also struggled to find the air bubbles in the tanks to fill their lungs.
While the experiment was largely deemed a reproduction success story in the mass media, tadpoles raised in microgravity were documented as having enlarged heads and eyes in scientific journals.
Credit: Tom Trower / NASA Ames Research Center
Credit: Tom Trower / NASA Ames Research Center
In an amphibian study two years later, four female African clawed frogs were injected with a hormone that triggers ovulation after reaching low-Earth orbit. NASA astronauts slathered sperm from male frogs onto the eggs, causing many to fertilize.
While the experiment was largely deemed a reproduction success story in the mass media, tadpoles raised in microgravity were documented as having enlarged heads and eyes in scientific journals. Some researchers who studied them in simulated weightlessness also observed these issues and suggested the super-sized heads may have been due to defects in the neural tube, which forms the early brain and spine. Across the board, it appears as though tadpole growth gets stunted, not just in space but also after they return to the gravity of Earth.
Why study fish and amphibians in space when the animal kingdom is full of species that more closely resemble humans? Mammals would be ideal, but experts say keeping them alive during long flights is complicated and expensive. Their embryos are also difficult to study in microgravity because they develop within a uterus. That makes it tricky for researchers to separate the influence of the mother’s body from the direct effects of weightlessness on the fetus.
Newts are considered a good model for space experiments because the female can retain live sperm for up to five months.
Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
In some cases, animals are picked based on logistics. For example, newts are considered a good model for space experiments because the females can retain live sperm after mating for up to five months. That large window of time allows scientists to inseminate them on Earth, but then have them go through fertilization, with the help of an injected hormone, later in space.
“To do humans, an actual study with human cells and human embryos, obviously, there are all kinds of checks and balances. Most of the work is done with proxies.”
‘Sex geckos’ experiments in space
Reptiles are some of the least studied creatures in space, though thick-toed geckos have taken trips aboard Russia’s uncrewed Foton-M3 in 2007 and Bion-M1 in 2013. They were chosen because their sticky feet help them attach to surfaces in weightlessness. When the geckos returned, scientists found bits of partially eaten unfertilized eggs in their habitats.
It remains a mystery whether lizard reproduction can occur in space. In 2014, a 60-day spaceflight on the Russian Foton-M4, which caught the attention of John Oliver on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, was cut short due to problems with the mission, including a temporary loss of communication with the satellite. All five of the ornate day geckos aboard the uncrewed spacecraft, or “sex geckos” as Oliver called them, died before landing, likely because of freezing, according to later reports.
Quail eggs might also seem like a bonkers choice of animal for reproduction and development experiments in space, but studies date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union sent them aboard Cosmos-1129. Reports from TASS, the state-run news agency, said the Soviet space program was trying to figure out if quail could be a food source for cosmonauts. Apparently most of the eggs broke during the landing.
But they kept trying over the years. Though some chicks could make it through incubation, the hatch rates tended to be low, and many of the embryos showed defects in their eyes, brains, and beaks. Birds raised on the Mir space station also never pecked right, a possible sign of a balance problem. A long list of defects were noted over multiple experiments, including muscular dystrophy and underdeveloped thyroid glands.
Space studies involving quail eggs date back to 1979.
Credit: Dominic Hart / NASA
Credit: Dominic Hart / NASA
Rodent reproduction experiments in space
Most of the previous mammal studies have involved rats. Despite NASA’s aversion to discussing and studying sex, the space agency and National Institutes of Health collaborated on space shuttle missions to study fetal development and postnatal health of rodents in space.
In two flights, 10 pregnant rats were launched midway through gestation and landed just a couple of days before the end of the full term. Rat pups born after the flights had delays in brain development and major sensory and motor systems, including in their eyes, ears, noses, and balance centers.
In a third rodent study, two litters each of five-day-old, eight-day-old, and 14-day-old pups flew in space. Though the oldest group fared better healthwise, only 10 percent of the five-day-olds survived. Among the eight-day-olds, 90 percent lived but had about 25 percent less body weight than normal. The 14-day-olds lived and were comparable to the same-age rat pups in the control group on Earth. This may mean that the space environment has an outsized negative impact on earlier stages of development.
But experts like Layendecker reiterate that not a single mammal has ever been born in space, so it’s anyone’s guess how fertilization and the forming of a placenta would occur away from our home planet.
“There’s not enough data from those experiments to really give us a substantive understanding of the whole problem,” he said.
Meta rejected Unbound’s sex toy ads — until they marketed to men
Sexual wellness brand Unbound made ads for a fake male-focused company, Thunderthrust. Meta approved Thunderthrust’s ads.
For years, online and offline spaces have rejected ads for products to help make sex better for women — but approved ones for men. In 2019, sex toy brand Dame sued the MTA over rejected subway ads (which they eventually settled). That same year, Dame and fellow brand Unbound pointed out this discrepancy with a quiz on what ads are blocked versus which are approved. When the ad centers a women’s sex toy, it’s rejected; when it’s about an erectile dysfunction product, it’s approved.
It’s sad to say that in 2023, the case is still the same. Now, Unbound tested whether Meta would approve its product ads if they were targeted to men — and it did.
When Unbound submitted ads for products like its Ollie wand vibrator, Bandit cock ring, or Cuffies handcuffs as they are, Meta rejected them. These ads feature the bright-colored products alone or with hands, usually in front of a colorful or sky backdrop.
“We want as many people as possible to have the best sex possible,” Unbound’s CEO and co-founder Polly Rodriguez said in a video on Twitter. “But the problem is that we cannot reach them.”
Unbound’s senior content manager Maddy Siriouthay went on to explain that many advertising platforms write their compliance policies through the lens of family planning — products that assist or prevent pregnancy. Here is a snippet from Meta’s Adult Product or Services ad policy:
Ads must not promote the sale or use of adult products or services. Ads promoting sexual and reproductive health products or services, like contraception and family planning, must be targeted to people 18 years or older and must not focus on sexual pleasure.
In practice, however, Unbound found a plethora of ads to improve erectile dysfunction and “male” sexual performance. Some of these ads contained explicit language and body parts.
As an experiment, Unbound edited their products to be in stereotypical dude colors (gray), changed the target audience, and created a name for a fake male fitness and performance enhancing company, Thunderthrust. The toys themselves stayed the same, and Unbound submitted Thunderthrust ads for approval.
Unbound’s original ad for Ollie, its wand vibrator, rejected by Meta.
Credit: Unbound
Credit: Unbound
Unbound’s “Thunderthrust” ad for Ollie, approved by Meta.
Credit: Unbound
Credit: Unbound
Meta approved these male-targeted ads.
This is a long-standing problem that companies like Unbound are fighting against. Earlier this year, these brands along with the Center for Intimacy Justice filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting that the FTC take action against Meta’s rejection of female-focused ads. This comes after Meta’s policy change in October 2022 to allow sexual health, wellness, and reproductive health ads — but, judging from this experiment, there’s still more to be done.
The Center has an ongoing petition to #StopCensoringSexualHealth, which Unbound workers encourage people to sign in its Thunderthrust videos.
“These policies are discriminatory in the way they are written, because they only allow one gender identity access to the tools and information that support a holistic definition of sexual wellness,” said Rodriguez in a second Twitter video.
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“We’d love to talk to Meta about improving the policies so that they are less gendered in how they are written and applied, and we’d welcome any conversation at any point in time,” Rodriguez told Mashable, while commenting that Meta has historically not been willing to come to the table.
Mashable reached out to Meta for comment and will update this story if received.
“Vibrator ads might seem a tedious hill to die on,” said Siriouthay in Unbound’s video, “but companies like Meta which own social media networks like Facebook and Instagram have major influence in what we see every day, which can then influence our subconscious beliefs, and the choices we make, and the opportunities we have.”