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Note to self: The new kitchen table can wait let's take a trip
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Amy Choate-Nielsen's family took a trip down the Kenai River in Alaska and saw a grizzly bear. - photo by Amy Choate-Nielsen
About a decade ago, my husband and I took a trip that was part dream, part fantasy and entirely life-altering.

Some friends of ours were living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and one day, I was hit with the most undeniably grand idea that my husband and I should go visit them before they moved. I told my husband about my idea, and he was a little hesitant. I was pregnant with our first child about four months along and he had never been to Asia. Yet, here I was asking him to board a flight that was longer than 20 hours and fly to a country he knew nothing about for thousands of dollars.

Despite his initial reluctance, my husband went along with every single arrangement I made from flights to trains to hotels to sightseeing excursions, and when everything was said and done, he admitted it was worth it. On that trip, we summited one of the tallest buildings in the world, rode elephants, ate dinner by candlelight on the beach, snorkeled with black-tipped reef sharks and got red-cheeked and sweaty as we gulped down deliciously spicy local cuisine off of a wide, flat, banana leaf. We visited mosques and open markets, rode in a bi-prop plane that had at least a 60 percent chance of crashing, got ripped off by a taxi driver, got sick, lost, tired, hot and frustrated. But in the end, it opened our minds, expanded our experiences and drew us closer as a couple.

Its hard to say how much its worth to be able to tell our children about seeing that reef shark or to imagine that beach at Bagus Place when life is stressful, but Id say the cost of an airplane ticket comes pretty close.

So about a year ago, I started planning another part dream, part fantasy, life-altering trip that I thought would be hard but worth it. This time, the stakes were higher. The cost was higher. Everything was higher. We were going to take our three children to Alaska.

Again, my husband was somewhat reluctant, but I remembered our trip to Malaysia and I waited for him to come around. I scheduled plane tickets and boat rides and hikes and rental cars, and occasionally my husband would look over at my computer screen and see the total on the receipt and he would pause, as his heart nearly stopped, and say something about what else we could do with that money.

I carried on, planning glacier cruises, river rides, a visit to the IdidaRide husky dogs in Seward, and as the totals flashed on my screen, the other ways we could spend that money, as my husband would say, grew in proportion. I waited for him to come around, but I admit, even I was starting to wonder if I was being wise.

Would it have been better to buy a new kitchen table instead?

Eventually, we made our way to The Final Frontier, and the adventure began. We watched sea otters play in kelp, witnessed a real-life chainsaw carving competition, saw red salmon fling themselves over and over against insurmountable boulders in an attempt to get upstream, and we saw the blue-green glow of our first glacier within an hour of our arrival to the state. We saw tufted puffins on their turf, and I huddled with my 6-year-old son on the bow of a ship as it heaved in the waves and rain as we waited for a humpback whale to break through the water and expose the entire length of its back and fluke of its tail as it dived back down.

On that trip, we saw a disappearing glacier, ate burgers and fries in an old bus and braved the rain every day. My mind will go back to the sight of a hundred white birds floating on the wind in front of a mile-high waterfall into glacial green waters when it wants to take a break from the beach in Malaysia and the stresses of life. On the last day of the trip, my husband took a picture of my sons sitting in a raft as they watched bald eagles nesting in the branches above and a bear swimming beside us. In the end, that photo and the look on their faces said a thousand words an opus about how they grew, a poem about how we came together, a book of stories to tell around the dinner table. It was enough to inspire my husband, last week, to come around and admit it was all worth it after all.

Research shows experiences are more valuable to humans than objects, but I wasnt sure why until now. According to a 2014 article in The Atlantic written by James Hamblin, humans are happier when they have something to anticipate, something to imagine.

Looking back on purchases made, experiences make people happier than do possessions, Hamblin wrote. Its the fleetingness of experiential purchases that endears us to them. Our memories and stories of them get sweet with time. Even a bad experience becomes a good story.

And so, in another 10 years, it will be time for another epic trip. By then, the old kitchen table may be more rickety and uglier than ever, but the stories well tell around it will be a thing of beauty.
Its toxic: New study says blue light from tech devices can speed up blindness
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A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers. - photo by Herb Scribner
It turns out checking Twitter or Facebook before bed is bad for your health.

A new study from the University of Toledo found that blue light from digital devices can transform molecules in your eyes retina into cell killers.

That process can lead to age-related macular degeneration, which is a leading cause of blindness in the United States, according to the researchs extract.

Blue light is a common issue for many modern Americans. Blue light is emitted from screens, most notably at night, causing sleep loss, eye strain and a number of other issues.

Dr. Ajith Karunarathne, assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said our constant exposure to blue light cant be blocked by the lens or cornea.

"It's no secret that blue light harms our vision by damaging the eye's retina. Our experiments explain how this happens, and we hope this leads to therapies that slow macular degeneration, such as a new kind of eye drop, he said.

Macular degeneration is an incurable eye disease that often affects those in their 50s or 60s. It occurs after the death of photoreceptor cells in the retina. Those cells need retinal to sense light and help signal the brain.

The research team found blue light exposure created poisonous chemical molecules that killed photoreceptor cells

"It's toxic. If you shine blue light on retinal, the retinal kills photoreceptor cells as the signaling molecule on the membrane dissolves," said Kasun Ratnayake, a Ph.D. student researcher working in Karunarathne's cellular photo chemistry group. "Photoreceptor cells do not regenerate in the eye. When they're dead, they're dead for good."

However, the researchers found a molecule called alpha-tocopherol, which comes from Vitamin E, can help prevent cell death, according to Futurism.

The researchers plan to review how light from TVs, cellphones and tablet screens affect the eyes as well.

"If you look at the amount of light coming out of your cellphone, it's not great but it seems tolerable," said Dr. John Payton, visiting assistant professor in the UT Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "Some cellphone companies are adding blue-light filters to the screens, and I think that is a good idea."

Indeed, Apple released a Night Shift mode two years ago to help quell blue lights strain on the eyes, according to The Verge. The screen will dim into a warmer, orange light that will cause less stress on the eyes.