Every day, hair salons sweep countless hair clippings off their floors and toss them into the trash without much thought. But in parts of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, those discarded strands are finding an entirely different purpose: helping forests grow.

French recycling company Capillum has developed a surprisingly effective way to reuse human hair by turning it into biodegradable mulch that protects young trees from hungry deer. The company collects hair from participating salons and transforms it into flattened fiber sheets that can be wrapped around vulnerable saplings.

What sounds unusual at first actually solves several environmental problems at once.

This story brings a whole new meaning to the word friendship.

In October 2020, the middle schoolers of Rye Junior High, in Rye, New Hampshire, bid a bon voyage to their handmade mini-boat, which set sail off the coast of New Hampshire to who-knows-where.

Measuring only 5.5 feet, the “Rye Riptides” was indeed a small ship. It ran crewless, but carried a bountiful cargo of colorful artwork made by students, along with a GPS tracking device that reported the boat’s location … sometimes.

Many of us have walked into an old building and felt some kind of eeriness. Depending on your own personal beliefs, you might be inclined to attribute this feeling to the presence of something supernatural. But science has found another culprit that haunts our psyche in these places, and it’s not ghosts. 

Researchers at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada, found that when people were exposed to infrasound, which is typically imperceptible to humans, they still experienced a rise in cortisol levels and irritation. 

“In an old building, there is a good chance that infrasound is present, particularly in basements where aging pipes and ventilation systems produce low-frequency vibrations,” noted senior author Rodney Schmaltz.