Mozart was known for his musical talent at a young age, playing the harpsichord at age 4 and writing original compositions at age 5. So perhaps it's fitting that a video of 5-year-old piano prodigy Alberto Cartuccia Cingolani playing Mozart has gone viral as people marvel at his musical abilities.Alberto's legs couldn't even reach the pedals, but that didn't stop his little hands from flying expertly over the keys as incredible music pours out of the piano at the 10th International Musical Competition "Città di Penne" in Italy in 2022. Even if you've seen young musicians play impressively, it's hard not to have your jaw drop at this one. Sometimes a kid comes along who just clearly has a gift. Of course, that gift has been helped along by two professional musician parents. But no amount of teaching can create an ability like this. Alberto first started playing in 2020 in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Italy was one of the first countries to experience a serious lockdown, and Alberto's mother used the opportunity to start teaching her son to play piano. Alessia Cingolani and her husband Simone Cartuccia are both music conservatory graduates, and mom Alessia told Italian entertainment website Contrataque that she and her husband recognized Alberto's talent immediately. She said that although Alberto spends a lot of time at the piano, he also has plenty of time for school and play and television, like a normal kid. There's genuinely nothing "normal" about this kid's piano playing, though. Watch: Wow, right? There are countless adults who took years of piano lessons and never got to that level of playing. It's like he's channeling Amadeus himself.According to Corriere Adriatico, by the time he was 4 1/2 years old, Alberto had participated in seven national and international online competitions and won first place in all of them. His mother told the outlet that he started out practicing for about 10 minutes a day and gradually increased to three hours. "He has a remarkable flair for the piano," she said. Um, yeah. Clearly. Some commenters expressed some concern for the boy based on his seriousness and what looks like dark circles under his eyes in the video, but if you check out other videos of Alberto playing at home, he is more relaxed. Most of his playing and competition entries have been done online, so performing for a crowd is probably new for him. And in interviews, his mother has made it clear that they prioritize normal childhood activities. Some children are just genuine prodigies, and Alberto certainly seems to fit that bill. Can't wait to see what kind of musical future awaits this kid. This article originally appeared on 5.4.22

Few things in this life are more universally delightful than having a conversation with a 3-year-old. You never know what they're going to say, what they say is usually hilarious and even if what they say is nothing special, the way they say it is too-freaking-cute. I can't count the number of times I wished I'd had a camera on my kids at all times when they were tiny so I could capture the near-constant daily adorableness. Speaking of adorableness, meet 3-year-old Saylor and her dad Zeth, who are entertaining millions with their conversations on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It's really just a dad and his daughter chillin' together with a couple of microphones, shooting the breeze and doing little activities together. It doesn't sound like much, but their sweet, wholesome interactions have garnered them 10 million followers on TikTok alone.When you see their videos, you'll see why.Like many kids her age, Saylor loves Disney characters. Here's a brief clip showing how she likes to pretend to have them on the phone: @zeth Got the whole Mickey Mouse clubhouse coming over But little Saylor had her mind completely blown when Zeth left her with a walkie-talkie and then called her from outside the room to talk to Goofy. I dare you not to smile watching this. (Hold onto your ovaries if you have them, folks. I'm serious.) @zeth I don’t know if we can top this reaction ? Her hyperventilating excitement, though. Too cute, right? And the "And he answered!" at the end. I love how kids this age mix things that really happened with things that they think happened, as well as things they totally imagined happening. The lines between reality and fantasy are so blurry at age 3, and having dad play along with that sense of wonderment is just awesome. According to NBC 7 San Diego, Zeth has been a content creator for about 10 years, but most of it revolved around his love of extreme sports. When he bought some podcasting equipment, Saylor helped him break it in, and when he looked at the footage later, Zeth realized they were onto something. Now he gets to live the dream of sharing his preschooler's cuteness with the world. Zeth said that they'll continue making videos together until it's not fun for Saylor any longer, but for now they're both clearly having a blast. And millions of us are having a blast watching right along with them.OK, one more for good measure. Guaranteed, you don't see the last line coming. @zeth Meet the newest member of our family, Sassy Bassy. This article originally appeared two years ago.

When you see a gymnast doing this, you know they've worked for years to train their muscles and perfect their gymnastics skills: Martin Rulsch, Wikimedia CommonsBut when you see a baby hovering in the air, legs in splits, you know there's probably a big ol' patch of grass beneath them. Grass?!? you may be thinking. Seriously? Aren't babies, the purest among us—unspoiled by the trappings of modern life and technology—naturally drawn to the earth? Apparently not if that earth is covered in grass, nope. For them, the lawn is lava.Babies—or at least a good portion of babies—will do pretty much anything to not let any part of their bodies touch grass. Viral videos have demonstrated this fact, with parents holding their wee ones over a patch of lawn and lowering them toward the ground. The way these tiny tots will twist themselves into gymnast-like positions to keep some daylight between them and the lawn is both impressive and hilarious. Watch: \u201cBabies instinctually avoid grass. Do they know something we don\u2019t\ud83e\uddd0\u201d — Tansu YE\u011eEN (@Tansu YE\u011eEN) 1663151646 You would think these parents were holding their kids above a pot of boiling oil, not the cool, refreshing grass. So what's happening here? Why are these babies so averse to touching grass? According to neuropsychologist Dr. Sanam Hafeez, it could be an issue of sensory overload. “Some babies lift their feet out in the air when a parent attempts to put them down on the grass because as a baby’s nervous system develops, sights, sensations, and sounds are intense,” Hafeez told Romper. “The ticklish, sharp blades of grass can catch a baby off guard, and some babies are often scared of it, as they are used to softer, more comfortable surfaces such as wood, tile, or carpet.”Pediatrician Gina Posner, M.D offered Parents a similar explanation. "The prickly texture and feel of grass is far different than softer and more comfortable feeling of carpet, tile, and wood surfaces on their feet, hands, and body, so babies are often scared of it." Grass can also be itchy and cause rashes, she said, which can make babies more averse to it. Another explanation may be more innate and evolutionary. In a 2014 study published in Cognition, researchers reported evidence that "human infants possess strategies that would serve to protect them from dangers posed by plants.""Across two experiments, infants as young as eight months exhibit greater reluctance to manually explore plants compared to other entities," the researchers shared. So perhaps babies simply don't trust grass. According to another study published in 2019, there may be something to that distrust idea. Researchers found that babies between 8 and 18 months old "exhibited more social looking toward adults when confronted with plants compared to other object types." The study authors pointed out that learning about which plants are beneficial and which ones are harmful is something humans can't do alone, and noted that infants tended to look to older adults for social cues about plants they encounter before touching them."This social looking strategy puts infants in the best position to glean information from others before making contact with potentially dangerous plants," researchers wrote.So, we have a few options here. Is it possible that those babies in the video weren't able to glean social cues from their caregivers that the grass was safe? Yes. Is it possible that they'd already touched grass once and found it too "tickly"? Yes. Is it possible that babies do all kinds of surprising, seemingly inexplicable things just to keep their parents guessing and always on their toes? Sure feels like it. Whatever the reason, watching babies blatantly reject the "touch grass" advice the rest of us keep getting is hilarious. Who says the grown-ups know best? Trust your instincts and do you, babes. This article originally appeared two years ago.

It’s unfortunate that humans are wired to notice everything bad going on in the world and to ignore the things that are going right. Our collective negativity bias was illustrated in a 2016 survey that asked people in 17 countries “Do you think the world is getting better or worse, or neither getting better nor worse?”Fifty‐eight percent of respondents thought that the world is getting worse, and 30% said that it is doing neither. Only 11% thought that things are getting better. However, there is a wealth of data to support the idea that the world is only improving when it comes to the hallmarks of human progress: education, freedom, poverty and health.In a recent interview with Upworthy, Chelsea Follett, the managing editor at Human Progress, explained why humans have a bias toward negativity, and the media isn’t doing us any favors."Historically, obviously our ancestors in a primitive environment who overreacted to danger were more likely to survive than those who underreacted," Follett told Upworthy. "But there is a point where unwarranted panic can actually be detrimental to your survival if you abandon policies or institutions that are actually working, or that have allowed you to make tremendous progress in the past."There's also the nature of the media," she added. "Obviously sudden, noteworthy and rare events are the ones that make headlines, whereas long-term slow, steady, incremental progress is just not as interesting."Our World in Data, an organization that performs "research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems" has created a revealing document that shows just how far humanity has come over the past 200 years. The graphs show how life has changed for a random sampling of 100 people over the past two centuries.The graph covers six topics that are cornerstones of human progress: poverty, basic education, literacy, democracy, vaccination and child mortality.PovertyIn 1820, 84 out of 100 people lived in extreme poverty, and over 200 years that number has dropped more than nine times to just 9 in 100. “The headline could be ‘The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 130,000 since yesterday’ and they wouldn’t have this headline once, but every single day since 1990, since, on average, there were 130,000 people fewer in extreme poverty every day,” Our World in Data wrote.Basic EducationTwo hundred years ago, 83 out of 100 people had no education at all. That number has been reduced to just 14 over the past 200 years.Our World In Data says that number is only going to get better. “Focusing on the educational breakdown the projection suggests that by 2100, there will be almost no one without formal education and there will be more than 7 billion minds who will have received at least secondary education,” Our World in Data said.LiteracyIn 1820, only 12 people out of 100 could read. In 2019, that number has risen more than seven times to 86. These numbers will continue to rise because a large portion of the world’s illiterate population is older.DemocracyOnly 1 out of 100 people lived in a democracy back in 1820. Now, 56 out of 100 people live in a country where they can select their elected officials. This was a big change that came after World War II.“In the second half of the 20th century, the world has changed significantly: Colonial empires ended, and more and more countries turned democratic,” Our World in Data wrote. “The share of the world population living in democracies increased continuously–particularly important was the breakdown of the Soviet Union which allowed more countries to democratize.”VaccinationOver the past 60 years, the number of people out of 100 that would have been vaccinated against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus has risen from 0 to 86.Child MortalityCan you imagine living at a time when almost half of all children born never lived to kindergarten age? “In 1800 the health conditions were such that around 43% of the world’s newborns died before their 5th birthday,” Our World In Data wrote. “In 2017 child mortality was down to 3.9% – 10-fold lower than 2 centuries ago.”This article originally appeared two years ago.

A few years ago I had an office job where I sat in a row of cubicles with about a dozen other people. One morning when a coworker walked into the office to start his day, a feeling of dread bubbled up from my subconscious. He was angry and I wasn’t going to be able to escape his feelings.His desk was about 10 feet from mine and like waves, I could feel his emotions seeping into my body. He wasn’t bothering anyone and was always pleasant to me, but I knew he was angry about something deep down, and I could feel it.As far as I knew, no one else in the office was having the same experience that I was. I was the only person who found it emotionally exhausting to be in the same room as this person.I wasn’t sure what to make of this bizarre, unintentional attachment to the emotional states of others until I was listening to a podcast featuring Dr. Drew Pinksy where he mentioned that he was “an emotional sponge” who sucks up other people’s emotions and referred to it as being an “empath.”That powerful revelation struck me in two ways. I realized that I was probably an empath as well and that I experience emotions differently than others. "One of the hardest things about being an empath is learning not everyone is,” Hannah Ewens at Vice wrote.PsychAlive describes being an empath as exhausting at times, but not without its benefits.“Empaths are highly sensitive individuals, who have a keen ability to sense what people around them are thinking and feeling. … often to the point of taking on the pain of others at their own expense,” PsychAlive says.“On the bright side, empaths tend to be excellent friends,” PsychAlive continues. “They are superb listeners. They consistently show up for friends in times of need. They are big-hearted and generous. Empaths also tend to be highly intuitive and emotionally intelligent.”As I started to look into the idea that I may be an empath, I began to consider the emotional sway my wife has over me. If she is stressed or tired, it makes me uncomfortable because I cannot escape her emotional state. It’s not that she’s overly emotional, but that I lack the force field that shields me from people’s emotional states, especially people close to me.That’s why I get a huge feeling of relief when my wife transitions from being in a negative mood to a positive one. But, on the other hand, she doesn’t seem to be swayed one way or the other by my emotional state. It’s not that she’s callous, it’s just that she has a healthy emotional distance from me.The problem is that it's nearly impossible to explain what this feels like to someone who isn’t an empath, and attempting to do so makes me seem a little unstable. So I keep these disturbances to myself, which probably isn’t healthy.Caroline Van Kimmenade, who runs courses for empaths who want to understand their power, explained what it’s like to be an empath. "It's like a football match where everyone gets hyped up and starts waving and then the mob things start sweeping you up, and you barely know you're doing it," she explained. "We can all experience that, but it doesn't mean you're an empath. But for an empath, it's that multiplied and applied to everything all of the time. Empaths are constantly in a giant football stadium where they're reacting to bigger things going on from all directions,” said Van Kimmenade.When I realized I was an empath it helped me make sense of a part of myself that always felt contradictory. I am a person who has no problem being alone for long periods of time, but I’m also totally comfortable in social situations.I work for Upworthy as a writer and the host of its podcast, “Upworthy Weekly,” and do it all from home. Honestly, I love being alone all day because I have a lot more power over my own emotional state than when I'm in an office getting bombarded by other people’s “stuff.”I also enjoy going to movies, concerts and bars alone, too.On the other hand, I am an extrovert who’s very comfortable in social situations. Empaths can be very social people because they have the superpower of being attuned to others' emotions and they have a great intuition for other people. We are experts at reading the room and are great at relating to all sorts of people.Dr. Judith Orloff, the author of “The Empath’s Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People,” says that extroverted empaths “crave the dopamine rush from lively events. In fact, they can’t get enough of it.”One of the strangest things about being an empath is having a heightened sense of smell. My sense of smell is so keen that I can’t wear cologne because I never go nose blind to the scent and it’ll bother me the whole night. The same goes for scented lotions. The interesting thing is that this isn’t just in my head; researchers have found that the part of the brain that recognizes emotions overlaps with the brain areas associated with smell. The New Science of Empathy and Empathshttps://drjudithorloff.com/the-new-science-of-empathy-and-empaths/\u00a0\u2026 — Judith Orloff MD (@Judith Orloff MD) 1643521266 So what causes someone to be an empath?“It can be both nature and nurture. Some empaths are born empaths the minute they come out of the womb they are these sensitive creatures feeling the world with the palm of their hands,” Dr. Orloff told Upworthy.Dr. Orloff says that research shows empaths have different brain chemistry.“Research is suggesting that the mirror neuron system in the brain is on overdrive with empaths—meaning their compassion is hyperactive versus narcissists who have hypo-active mirror neurons and empathy deficient disorder,” Orloff said.Orloff adds that even though men and women are both empaths, it can be harder for men to come to terms with their sensitivity. She runs an empath support community where men are much more reluctant to share.“When the men do share, they express the shame about being sensitive, how it isn't masculine and how they were bullied as children and made to feel ashamed to be crybabies rather than beautiful sensitive beings,” Orloff told Upworthy.I had never heard of the term empath until about five years ago, but after coming to the realization that I probably am one and learning about the positive and negative aspects of this psychological trait, I feel that I’ve become better at navigating my emotional life. I'm getting better at seeing the difference between my emotions and those of others and making sense of the difference.On the positive side, I’ve developed greater trust in my own intuition knowing that, as an empath, when I get a sense about someone, I should go with it because there’s a good chance I’m right. I’ve also learned to be less judgmental of those around me who I think aren’t as sensitive as they should be. They’re just not experiencing life the same way.This article originally appeared 2 years ago.

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Peas are nutritious and tasty, especially when seasoned and paired with the right ingredients. These are some of the amazing ways to cook with peas.

by M Dowling, Independent Sentinel: Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley have expressed interest in working in Donald Trump’s administration again, but that’s not what his followers want. He wrote a gracious message today stating he would not invite them to join, but he “very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them.” “I will not be […]