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Curious Facts About Starbucks Coffee Workers

Starbucks Coffee is one of the world’s most iconic brands. Famous for its green mermaid emblem and name personalization on every cup, this chain has expanded to more than 24,000 store locations worldwide. Whether you’re a loyal customer or just go for the occasional splurge, there are some pretty interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the people pouring your brew.

The Workers Are Not Baristas

Man holding out Starbucks cup.

Typically, someone working at a coffee shop is known as a barista. However, at this Seattle-based chain, all the workers are referred to as partners. This is for two reasons. One, it fosters a level of companionship among all the employees. Second, after working there a year each employee gets a share in the stock, so they are literally stock partners.

They Serve Your Pooch, Too

If you bring your furry companion to a Starbucks, many of their employees will offer your dog a “puppacino.” This treat consists of cup filled with whipped cream. Although it’s not the healthiest thing to give your dog, given the high fat and sugar content, it’s a nice way to make him or her feel special!

You Can Request Coffee Foam Art

coffee foam art.

Starbucks is known for having many fancy flavors and drinks that are instagram-worthy (hello, pink drink!) but you very rarely see their drinks with foam art. This is due to technical reasons. The Starbucks pitchers are actually wider than standard pitchers at local coffee shops, making it difficult to pour the foam decoratively. You can however request a worker to add art– just don’t expect them to be too happy about it. Which takes us to our next point…

Yes, They Will Decaffeinate Drinks Of Rude Customers

For anyone who has accidentally purchased or consumed decaf when they desperately needed full-caffeine, this is a true nightmare. But our suspicions prove to be true- some Starbucks workers have admitted to giving decaf to rude customers as means for “revenge.” Some additionally misspell your name on purpose. But can we really blame them? Sometimes it’s the little things that get us through the day when we’ve been treated badly. You have been warned!

Photos: Unsplash

Reasons Writing In Cursive Benefits Your Brain

Remember those agonizing days in elementary school of learning how to (and be forced to) write in cursive? Only for the majority of us to never use it again later in life… Well, turns out writing in flowing, cursive handwriting actually helps our brains in many ways. Time to put down the phone and start practicing your fancy script again!

Cursive Enhances Your Concentration

Group of students writing in cursive, looking focused.

Writing in cursive helps our thoughts to stay connected and on topic. In fact, in the United States a study found students who wrote in cursive on the SAT college entrance exam actually scored higher than those who wrote in normal print. The theory behind this advantage is that students who wrote with the flowing letters didn’t have to use extra effort and time by writing in print, thereby having more time to concentrate on the content of their writing.

Activates More Parts Of Your Brain

Brain with lots of electric bolts coming from it.

When compared to typing or writing in normal print, writing in cursive has been found to activate more parts of the brain. Additionally, when people read in cursive, more neurological pathways of both left and right hemispheres in the brain work together, than reading regular manuscript. This enables you to understand and retain learned content better.

Helps You Become A Better Speller

magnet letters all mixed together.

When writing in cursive, you are naturally learning to form words in which each letter is connected. This in turn creates associations and connections in the brain, helping you to remember the proper spelling of words. This is super helpful, especially when you consider how bad spell check can be sometimes…

Fine Tunes Your Motor Skills

Man buttoning his shirt.

To be legible, cursive requires lots of practice using fine motor skills. These skills work the small muscles in our hands so that we can do daily activities, like buttoning a shirt, grabbing items, and feeding ourselves with much more ease. You might not be worried about losing these functions at this point in your life, but it can’t hurt to keep them skilled for lifelong self sufficiency and a great mind too!

Photos: Freepik

Biodegradable yucca bags to replace plastic

Biodegradable

That we ought to reduce our plastic consumption has become common sense by now. However, it seems to be awfully difficult to carry out. It has become so deeply integrated into every aspect of society that now that we are starting to live with the consequences, we just don’t know how to get rid of this harmful thing we call plastic.

Bags against pollution

However, with new ideas like these yucca-based biodegradable bags we are certainly taking a step in the right direction. Kevin Kumala came up with this innovative idea. It occurred during one of his trips to his home country: Bali. He noticed the enormous amounts of plastic that end up at the beaches, not only in Bali, but everywhere around the world.

Non-plastic bags

Kumala’s journey

From then on, the biologist started seeking for a solution to replace these plastic bags that have become so usual in our daily lives. However, the journey he would have to go through would definitely not be an easy one.

He did not only want these new bags to be biodegradable, he also wanted to make sure that, in case they did end up in the sea, they wouldn’t harm marine fauna.

A clever solution

Yucca bag

He found yucca starch bags to be the perfect solution for the plastic problem. What Kumala accomplished went further than just bags that biodegrade at a fast pace: he managed to make his invention eatable for fish, meaning they would not only not cause any harm, they would also feed marine wildlife.

Yucca bags

Kumala chose the yucca veggie to be the protagonist of his invention because of his own roots. Indonesia cultivates over 25 million tons of yucca every year. This is why yucca seemed like the perfect candidate for the job. Once the biologist chose the material he wanted to work with, he went onto copying the manufacturing process of regular bags.

More than bags

Cutlery

The result of Kumala’s investigation was a bag that would turn into compost in only 100 days, that dissolves in warm water and is as cheap as 5 dollar cents. This project, if all goes as planned, will reach other countries in no time.

However, Avani Eco did not want to limit themselves to just “plastic” bags: they have already started creating all sorts of plastic replacements in other areas like food recipients or cutlery.

Images: Avani Eco

These Seals Were Taught To Sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Typically we don’t think of seals as musically gifted creatures, but scientists at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have managed to train a choir of three seals, as seen in this latest video.

Granted, the trio of gray seals only have two songs memorized under their belt, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and the theme to “Star Wars.” However, this is a far cry from the occasional bark we expect to hear from this sea creature. Yes, all in the name of science!

Singing With A Purpose

The purpose of the study was to see if animals can be successful at vocal learning. This skill is vital for humans in learning language, but rarely seen in animals. Published in the scientific journal Current Biology, the study aimed to see if seals could copy human formants and melodies, which are needed for humans to process information.

grey seal lying on sand.

As you can imagine, learning human languages is not native to seals. For this reason, the animals were first trained to mimic their own sounds and the sounds of human vowels.

While this might seem like a simple task, the reality of it according to the researchers was quite the opposite. It took “hundreds of trials to teach the seal what we want it to do.”

Quick Learners

After many trials and errors, the sea creatures eventually got used to the training and were able to copy new sounds within only a few attempts.

Upon watching the video, you might not be so impressed by the way the seal Zola barks her way through the two songs. However, the researchers were extremely impressed given these sounds are not typical of their species, proving their vocalization is apt for learning.

The Next Steps For The Seals

While their ability to make human sounds is proven, the next step is to see if these creatures understand language. This would require further investigation with the animals labeling different objects, vocally.

seals lying on a chair hugging each other.

This might seem silly research to the average human, but this investigation is useful because seals and humans share the same neural and anatomical structures. Meaning, the research in vocal learning on seals can help better understand human speech disorders and learning.

Photos: Unsplash and Pixabay.

The Norwegian island that wants to get rid of time

Sommaroy is the name of the Norwegian island that is planning on completely getting rid of time. The island has 69 days of summer, which is why it’s often called “the Summer Island”. It’s also why they have come up with this crazy time-less idea.

Where the initiative stems from

The 300 hundred inhabitants of the island spend 69 days straight under the light of day. They lack normal timetables like we have. To them, it is strange for a child to have a curfew. If they had to tell them to come home when night falls they would see them again three months later!

Making the most out of it

The daylight allows them to make the most out of the time they have: you’ll find children playing football at 2 in the morning. How crazy? Given they already didn’t live like the rest of the world, it just made sense to them to completely remove any sense of time. The objective of this new no-time implementation is to remove stress, allowing citizens to live more freely and in peace.

An implementation many want

If the implementation does take place, Sommaroy would be the first zone worldwide to live without any sense of time. They aim is to formalize a system that suits their light-time better. All it needs is legislative approval, as it already has the approval of the citizens. They have even been called to hang their clocks from the bridge as a sign to show they are in favour.

For now, the initiative has come up just for summertime, but they are already looking at extending it to the whole year, even when day light is scarce. Would you dare living like this?

Confirmed: Instagram ISN’T Listening To Your Conversations

How many times have you scrolled through Instagram, only to see an ad pop up about the most random thing you were just talking about with your friends? I swear it happens all too often. Most recently I was bombarded with inflatable pool flamingos after my friend had been talking to me about buying one. It was CREEPY and I swore Instagram was listening!

Man holding coffee cup while scrolling instagram on phone, looking shocked.

However, according to Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, the application we long thought was eavesdropping into all of our conversations, isn’t! In fact, it has no connection or access to the microphones in our phones!

If Instagram Isn’t Listening, Why Do We Get Such Specific Targeted Content?

His first explanation for the phenomenon? “Dumb luck,” which doesn’t seem quite like a sufficient answer for one of the most used and profitable applications in the world. 

via GIPHY

His other theory might leave you feeling a little more uneasy. Masseri said, “you might be talking about something because it’s top of mind because you’ve been interacting with that type of content more recently. It’s top of mind, maybe it’s subconscious and then it bubbles up later.” Meaning, you are likely interacting with content on social media and websites, without even realizing it!

Not Entirely A Coincidence…

It does make you wonder how often we surf the internet or scroll through instagram and like different ads, websites, and photos without registering what we are doing. That said, Mosseri does admit that the ads we see on Instagram are generated based on the accounts we follow and all the content we commented on or liked. 

Man on computer while a circle of social media apps, including Twitter, instagram, Facebook, etc encircle him.

Another way that Instagram gives us “targeted ads” is by sorting each of its users into one of 52,000 ad-targeting categories. Talk about being specific! Just further proof that there is a deep digital algorithm behind all the content we see.

How To Avoid The “Creepy” Ads In The Future

Girl holding Instagram logo in front of face.

On the one hand, we can rest assured that Instagram is not listening in to our most intimate (and ridiculous) of conversations. To avoid the creepy “I swear I was just talking about this” ads that pop up, it’s a wise decision to start paying more attention to all that we do while using our social media apps. Being more attentive instead of mindlessly scrolling and liking will help limit the shocking content.

Photos: Freepik