Viral Story Of The Day: March 2016

Thursday, March 31, 2016

An artist created itty-bitty paintings every day for a year. Here are 15 of them.

Teeny tiny things are totally fascinating.

Which is why Brooke Rothshank took an interest in miniatures 11 years ago after attending a doll house miniature show. Shortly after, she began creating highly detailed, fascinating itty bitty (totally not a technical term) paintings in oils and acrylics. She even received a scholarship to attend the International Guild of Miniature Artisans school.

As many couples do, Rothshank and her husband started a family and a few years ago, with a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, she was having trouble completing any tiny drawings.

"I enjoy being with my kids and I love being a mom but making art is an integral part of living well for me," Rothshank told Upworthy.

And so with the support and help of her husband, her mom, and baby-sitters, she decided to make herself a promise.

Brooke Rothshank committed to creating one tiny painting every day for an entire year.

She was successful in her year-long endeavor and got back into the routine of making time for her passion. In fact, it went so well that she's going to commit to a weekly commissioned piece of work for the entire year in 2017.

The paintings are gorgeous and immaculate and tiny! Each one can take anywhere from half an hour to four hours to complete. The paintings are at 1/12th scale and super detailed.

So here are 15 of her amazing tiny paintings!

1. A perfect miniature unicorn.

All photos of paintings belong to Brooke Rothshank and are shared here with permission.

2. The ultimate single serving Sriracha.

3. An itty-bitty kitty cat.

4. A tiny violin.

5. A super small fish bowl.

6. A teeny baby elephant.

7. A pocket-sized goat.

8. A minuscule gummy bear.

9. A teeny turtle.

10. The smallest cheese spread ever.

11. A sweet sleeping fox.

12. A minuscule sprinkled donut.

13. A pint-sized boot.

14. Slight strawberries.

15. A teensy treat.

The paintings are fantastic, but equally important is the message Rothshank shared along with them.

"I have a personal need to create," she said. But as most parents know, it's not always easy to balance parenting young children with work and hobbies. And often, our personal interests are the first things we set aside. "[F]inding smaller ways to satisfy that need has been my solution," she said.

How does that work? For Rothshank, who gave birth to her third child seven weeks early in December, it means asking for help from family and using baby-sitters to ensure she has even small windows of time for her art.

"My advice is to make your passions a consistent priority," she said. "When you are parenting small children, devoting time to yourself each day simply for self-care can make a radical difference."

Pretty cool drawings, right? If you want to see more or purchase her art, you can check out her website, Etsy store, and Instagram account. She's running an April Fools' Day sale on Etsy, so be sure to stop by!

A girl was asked about BMI on a test. Her answer was mic-droppingly great.

When an Indiana eighth-grader was asked about BMI in class, she took her teacher to school.

A few weeks before this student got a BMI assignment, every student in the class was weighed in front of their peers and made to calculate their BMI, or body mass index. According to the student's mother, her daughter came home in tears after the exercise. She's perfectly healthy, she eats well and she's active ... but according to her BMI, she was "obese."

Body mass index is known to be a pretty flawed system of measuring someone's weight in relation to their height. It often oversimplifies complex health issues by putting people into one of four categories — underweight, normal, overweight, or obese.

Which is why this student's frustration led her to do some extra writing on her class assignment about BMI.

Here's the question she had to answer:

She could have easily recited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of BMI in her answer:

"Body Mass Index (BMI) is a person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters. A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness. BMI can be used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems but it is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual."

And she could have easily just typed her measurements into one of the many online BMI calculators.

But she didn't. Instead, she gave an amazing explanation of exactly why BMI is an outdated, inaccurate way of measuring overall health. Here. I'll let her explain:

"BMI is an outdated way of defining normal weight, under weight, over weight, and obesity by taking one person's height divided by their weight. One of the formula's obvious flaws, explains Alan Aragon, the Men's Health Weight Loss Coach and nutritionist in California, is that it has absolutely no way of discriminating fat and muscle. So, let's say there is a fairly athletic woman who maintains a decent diet, she's five feet, six inches, and she weighs 190 pounds, but 80% of her body is muscle. That doesn't matter when calculating BMI! This woman's BMI would be 30.7, and she would be labeled obese. Does that make sense to you? Because it sure doesn't make sense to me."

"How could someone who stays fit, eats healthy, and has a low metabolism be in danger of heart disease and diabetes? Oh, that's right, because she isn't in danger of obesity and heart disease. This woman is active and healthy and she is the furthest thing from obese. In conclusion, BMI is an outdated way of determining a person's body health, and it's a measurement that should not be used in a school setting where students are already self-conscious and lacking confidence in their unique bodies."

"Now, I'm not going to even open my laptop to calculate my BMI. And I'll tell you why. Ever since I can remember, I've been a "bigger girl" and I'm completely fine with that; I'm strong and powerful. When you put a softball or a bat in my hand, they are considered lethal weapons. But, at the beginning of the year, I started having very bad thoughts when my body was brought into a conversation. I would wear four bras to try and cover up my back fat, and I would try to wrap ace bandages around my stomach so I would look skinnier. So my lovely mother did what any parent would do when they noticed something wrong with her child, she took me to my doctor. My doctor and I talked about my diet and how active I am."

"He did a couple tests and told me I was fine. He said though I'm a bit overweight, he's not going to worry about me based on how healthy I am. So this is where I don't calculate my BMI because my doctor, a man who went to college for eight years studying children's health, told me my height and weight are right on track. I am just beginning to love my body, like I should, and I'm not going to let some outdated calculator and a middle school gym teacher tell me I'm obese, because I'm not. My BMI is none of your concern because my body and BMI are perfect and beautiful just the way they are."

Mic drop.

GIF from "The Colbert Report."

Special thanks to James MacLeod for bringing this to our attention and helped obtain permission to use the photos.

These women won the World Cup. They're still angry. You would be too.

The ugly side of the "beautiful game."

The United States women's soccer team is, undeniably, the best in the world.

Their matches fill stadiums, their players are household names, and they've won three FIFA World Cups and four Olympic championships since 1991. Last year alone, this team generated $20 million more in revenue than the U.S. men's team did.

The U.S. women's soccer team celebrating during the 2012 Olympics. Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.

So, naturally, they're only paid about 1/4 of what male players get. Yes, you read that correctly.

I understand if you need to take a minute to yell into your rage pillow. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Let it out, Marissa. GIF from "The O.C."

Because these women WIN for a living, they aren’t going to accept this unfair treatment.

This week, five members of the women's team — on behalf of all their fellow players — filed a wage-discrimination action with the national Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against their bosses at the U.S. Soccer Federation.

It’s not the first time the women’s team has gone up against their employers.

Back in January, the players submitted a new deal to their employers through their union — one that had, according to their lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, "equal pay for equal work as its guiding principle." U.S. Soccer disagreed on the timing, saying their current deal was binding until December 31, 2016. Now both parties are in court, with the U.S. Soccer Federation suing the players to abide by the past contract — the one that pays them about four times less than players on the men's team — until after the Rio Olympics.

Even if we look past the dispute on contract timing, it is hard to have much empathy for U.S. Soccer.

Women in the United States are already subject to unfair wage discrimination. On average among full-time workers, American women make just 79 cents for every dollar an American man makes. What women’s soccer players are facing is so much worse than that.

Let’s say that for every time Landon Donovan, a star player on the U.S. men’s team, scores a goal, he gets a dollar.

Congratulations on your dollar, Mr Donovan! Image by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images Sport.

The current wage rules would mean that when Megan Rapinoe, a star on the U.S. women’s team, scores, she only gets paid 25 cents.

Megan Rapinoe, earning the heck out of her 25 cents. Image by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

In this scenario, for her to get close to the national average for women’s pay, she has to score three times. And to be paid equal to what a male player gets for one goal, she has to score four.

According to U.S. Soccer, it takes four Megan Rapinoes to equal one Landon Donovan. That's bananas. And just wrong. Image by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

(FYI: It was exhausting just writing that out. Imagine what it’s like living it every single game.)

"I've been on this team for a decade and a half, and I've been through numerous CBA negotiations, and honestly, not much has changed," Hope Solo told "Today."

"We continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer, to get paid for doing it."

"In this day and age, it's about equality. It's about equal rights. It's about equal pay. We're pushing for that. We believe now the time is right because we believe it's our responsibility for women's sports and specifically for women's soccer to do whatever it takes to push for equal pay and equal rights. And to be treated with respect."

Soccer is an intense physically demanding sport. The women who play it professionally have to be wickedly fit, quick-thinking team players who can run nonstop for hours without vomiting.

They deserve our admiration, our ticket dollars, and every trophy and accolade they earn. And if their employers still don't agree they deserve at least as much as men, then those employers deserve every bit of criticism these women kick their way.

Game on.

Image by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.

Christian Louboutin's new definition of 'nude' is pretty great.

Christian Louboutin just released a new set of nude shoes.

Next time you're at your local pharmacy, take a look down the makeup aisle and you might notice something: For every one color made to match the skin of people darker than sheets of notebook paper, there are half a dozen colors that cater to people who are variations of white.

In a lot of places — and especially in the fashion world — being white is considered the default. "Nude" is synonymous with "white." And that's what makes this trendsetter's new line so exciting.

Fashion designer Christian Louboutin is renowned for creating inspiring, iconic footwear — and his latest line is making news for a really interesting reason: It's accurate.

"Nude" no longer means "white" in the world of Louboutin shoes. Instead, it means seven shades ranging from "porcelain" to "deep chocolate." This is an increase beyond the brand's past color offerings, which were limited to just five shades.

OK, but why does this matter? Because we really need to work to get the idea of "white as the normal" out of our heads.

The campaign's tagline is "A nude for every woman," and that's really what it's all about. By embracing diversity, we can understand a fuller, more well-rounded story of who we are as humanity. Nobody should feel excluded from something as simple as finding shoes that match on the basis of their skin tone.

White is the default only for as long as we make it that.

Most of us probably can't afford to go out and pick up a new pair of Loubouotin's at the drop of a hat, but here's where this decision extends beyond the brand: Others are sure to follow.

Maybe a pair of Louboutin shoes will always be out of your price range, but that's OK because, given the brand's influence on the fashion world, it's almost certain to inspire others to enact similar diversity-boosting changes as well.

The story of HIV's rise and fall in the U.S., told through a smart comic.

Reduced HIV diagnoses have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go in fighting stigma.

This comic was originally featured on the Sex Ed Plus blog and was republished here with permission.

Famed architect Zaha Hadid has died. She left behind these 17 jaw-dropping buildings.

Zaha Hadid, designer of some of world's most captivating, groundbreaking buildings, passed away today at age 65.

Photo by Andrew Rentz/Getty Images.

Known as the "Queen of the Curve," Hadid was born in Baghdad and lived primarily in the U.K., where she established herself as one of the most dominant, innovative British architects of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In an industry where just 12% of female British architects are partners in firms, Hadid refused to take no for an answer — and her persistence paid off. She was the first woman to win both the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the Royal Institute of British Architects Royal Gold Medal — two of the biggest architecture awards in the world.

"Among architects emerging in the last few decades, no one had any more impact than she did. She fought her way through as a woman," fellow architect Richard Rogers told The Guardian.

We all like to think that, when we die, we'll leave behind a lasting legacy. In reality, most of us are lucky to leave behind so much as a cool couch and $47.

Here's what Hadid left behind: