Couple plants real-life 'money tree' and its first seeds are worth over $6,700

The species is at least 200 million years old.

By Tod Perry

As the old adage goes, money doesn’t grow on trees. However, what if you had a tree that was so rare that people would spend good money for its seeds? Then you could honestly say that you have a money tree growing in your yard. Such is the case for a retired couple in England, Pamela and Alistair Thompson, both 75, who in 2010 paid £70 ($98) for a 46cm-tall Wollemi pine sapling that a friend bought on the Shopping Channel. It’s believed that it was the first ever endangered tree species to be protected by making it available to the general public.

The Wollemi pine is valuable because it appears in the fossil record as far back as 200 million years ago and was thought to have gone extinct about 70 to 90 million years back. However, in 1994, a bushwalker in Australia came across a Wollemi pine in a secluded gorge. Biologically, it was a discovery as significant as coming across a living dinosaur in a hidden part of Australia in the ‘90s.

🩷 Woman with terminal brain tumor shares her truly inspiring outlook on finding meaning in life

"Pretty soon, all the beautiful days stacked up into a beautiful life."

By Cecily Knobler

Amber Stratton had her world turn upside down nearly five years ago. She was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and she fought it with every tool in the proverbial medical tool box. After chemo and a double mastectomy, it remained—so she did it again, along with radiation, and was finally deemed cancer-free in early 2022.

That is until two months later when she was told she had a terminal brain tumor. Her prognosis? About two years to live. But there has been something inside of her, despite such a scary diagnosis, that drives her to grab every day and fill it up to the brim with joy. She lives each day as fully as she doubling down on wearing pink and going all in on motorsports.

Upworthy first reached out to Stratton last November via Reddit after she posted "Yearly post, 3 years into terminal brain tumor. Beating the odds and loving life!" She (like many) didn't realize there was a direct messaging system on the site but responded just last week with the subject header, "I'm still alive, woo hoo!"

His eyes say it all. 🥲

Frustrated Dad poignantly calls out mother-in-law for bullying his 11-year-old daughter

"Thank you for standing up for your daughter 😭.”

By Heather Wake

Many of us grew up receiving off-handed body shaming comments from family members. We experienced firsthand how damaging these messages could be for our self-esteem and relationship with food.

So now, as parents, we naturally want to protect our kids from being exposed to similar messaging…even if it means telling a family member off.

This was the situation that Jon Lau found himself in during a family dinner one night, when his mother in-law (with whom he has an overall “great” relationship but who does say some "senseless" things on occasion) made a comment about his 11-year-old daughter’s belly. Yikes, hearing that alone elicits a visceral reaction, doesn’t it?

🔎 15 weird facts that sound totally fake but are actually true

Truth really is stranger than fiction sometimes.

By Annie Reneau

As the information age morphs into the misinformation age, it's hard to know what to believe anymore. Falsehoods are referred to as "alternative facts," established institutional knowledge as "an agenda" and there's so much spin on political narratives that objective truth gets lost in a dizzying stream of senseless word vomit.

It's wise to be skeptical when propaganda abounds, especially when a "fact" looks fake on its face. But in reality, sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction, as evidenced by a Reddit thread in which someone asked for facts that sound fake but are actually true and people delivered.

Of course, as expected, not all of the responses actually constitute fact. But some fact-checking reveals that a whole bunch of them are true, and they are wild.