Netflix wins (for now)

🌿 2,000-year-old garden under Jesus’ tomb? This is amazing. Italian archaeologists just found ancient grapevines and olive trees buried beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the same place long believed to house the tomb of Jesus. There’s also this post going viral about Jesus’ body found under the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

Less risk of cognitive decline for older adults who regularly use smartphones and computers. Why? Research shows it keeps their brains active and engaged, which may help with memory loss. But hey, that doesn’t mean they should go full TikTok zombie and scroll for hours. Everything in moderation, folks.

🧓 Tech helps older brains: Screens rotting brains is an old wive’s tale apparently. A huge new study of 400,000+ adults found using digital tech is linked to a 58% lower risk of cognitive decline in older adults. Why? Learning to use new tech keeps your brain challenged. You or your grandma yelling at an iPad might secretly be gaining IQ points.

📱 Need a tough phone or tablet? Samsung just announced the rugged Galaxy XCover7 Pro and Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro. They’re water- and dust-resistant and can survive drops from up to 1.5 meters (that’s 5 feet for people like me who never understood the metric system). As for performance, both run the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 with 6GB RAM. Oh, and the batteries are removable. Pricing is still TBA.

Safe Wi-Fi anywhere: Using public Wi-Fi is risky no matter where you go. It doesn’t make a difference if you stay at a five-star luxury hotel, have lunch at your hometown diner or you’re at the airport. The easy way to protect yourself? Turn on a VPN.

🛻 Screen stealers: Drive a new Dodge Ram truck? Thieves are snatching up dashboard screens. A design flaw makes the screen easy to detach. Always lock your doors and get a solid anti-theft alarm system. 

💸 Not a bad side hustle: Twentysomethings are making up to $36,000 a year by renting their everyday items like T-shirts, speakers and lawn mowers. On the clothing app Pickle, for example, a Cult Gaia dress that normally costs $898 can be yours temporarily for $100 (paywall link). Dang, my garage full of “investments” could be a passive income gold mine. 

🔥 Power pod meltdown: Casely is recalling its Power Pods 5000mAh MagSafe wireless chargers because the lithium-ion batteries inside may overheat, expand or literally catch fire. Hit this link to see if it’s listed on your Amazon account recall list. 

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🍿 Minecraft mayhem: Minecraft meets real-life survival mode. Teens are going wild for the new Minecraft movie, shouting, tossing snacks, spraying lotion on seats and someone even let live chickens loose. Why? Many kids got hooked on the game during the pandemic. Now they’re letting all that nostalgia loose in the form of chaos. Talk about a block party!

💍 Heard of The Knot? It’s that wedding planning site where you find vendors like photographers and dressmakers for your big day. Vendors pay thousands to advertise on it, and now they’re saying The Knot is sending them fake leads, aka “brides” who don’t exist (paywall link). That’s how you end up on Santa’s knotty list.