🌎 Electric Discovery

Thanksgiving travellers had it rough this weekend

Luckily, the worst of it is over… right? This weekend, a heavy winter storm sweeping across much of the US collided with a record‑high volume of Thanksgiving travel, creating a perfect storm for travel headaches.

Travel torture

From Friday to Sunday, aviation company FlightAware reported 27,104 flight delays into or out of the US, along with 3,117 cancellations, thanks to a massive winter storm that buried large swaths of the country.

• The Midwest, western Great Lakes, and parts of the East Coast saw six to 12 inches of snow, gusty winds, and hazardous travel, according to the National Weather Service.

• The FAA also reported that the airports in Minneapolis, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, and Arlington all had to deice planes.

The barrage of delays came as Airlines for America had forecast a record 31 million Thanksgiving weekend travelers, including 3.4 million passing through airports on Sunday, at least before the weather disruptions.

The disruption could only get worse: Forecasters say the major winter storm is expected to continue throughout the week, bringing snow, sleet, rain, and ice to multiple regions, which could further complicate both air and road travel.

Gen Z is keeping Black Friday alive

They were all probably rushing to get Labubus. While most physical stores saw disappointing Black Friday foot traffic, teen-focused niche retailers emerged as unexpected winners thanks to strong Gen Z turnout.

A shift in traffic

Stores popular with Gen Z, like Edikted, Kendra Scott, and Bath & Body Works, drew some of the longest lines nationwide, leaving many traditional retailers to see relatively thin crowds.

Why is Gen Z propping up Black Friday? Well, most young people want to do the bulk of their shopping while the best deals are active:

• AT&T’s 2025 Holiday Shopping Survey found that 40% of Gen Z and 32% of millennials planned to do their Christmas shopping on Black Friday, while older customers preferred to wait.

Meanwhile, higher-end and mall-based retailers (which are historically dependable for Black Friday crowds) saw a far weaker performance this year, mainly due to older shoppers not showing up in line.

So where did everyone else shop?

This year, in-store traffic was down 3.2% on Black Friday compared to last year, but online spending more than made up for the shortfall:

• Salesforce estimates that online US sales rose to $17.5 billion, a 7% increase from last year.

• Between 10 am and 2 pm, shoppers were spending an astonishing $11.3 million per minute online, according to Adobe.

Not to mention, online carts were more than twice the size of in-store carts, according to payment firm Block. That’s partially because retailers are better at making more goods (that would typically only be in stores) available online as Black Friday increasingly becomes an online holiday.

Why is everyone shopping online? According to Adobe, online discounts “exceeded expectations” and encouraged shoppers to buy, particularly in categories like toys (up to 27.8% off), electronics (27.4%), televisions (24.2%), apparel (22.2%), computers (22%), and sporting goods (19.5%).

NASA records first evidence of lightning on Mars

I just know the little green men are behind it. NASA’s Perseverance rover observed what appeared to be the first evidence of lightning on the surface of the Red Planet, according to new data.

Electric discovery

The instances of “mini lightning” were not detected with a visual camera, however, but were picked up by the rover’s microphone and electromagnetic sensors during dust storms and dust-devil activity.

Over a span of about two Martian years (about 3.75 Earth years), researchers identified 55 distinct electrical events, each with a very similar characteristic:

• They all had a brief static-like burst (lasting under 40 microseconds), followed by a faint acoustic decay over a few milliseconds, consistent with a small discharge of electricity.

• These arcs are very small (around millimeters to centimeters) and are far weaker than Earth’s large-scale lightning bolts.

Scientists say the discharges seem to happen when microscopic dust particles from Mars’ soil rub and collide in windy dust storms or swirling dust devils (watch video), generating static electric charges that eventually spark.

It’s extremely dangerous: Those ultrafine particles, which measure just 3 micrometers wide, are small enough to penetrate the lungs and move into the bloodstream, exposing the body to reactive chemicals that scientists say can trigger thyroid disease. NASA has listed the dust as a significant risk to human exploration of the Red Planet.

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Homeowners really don’t want to sell their homes

It’s the real estate edition of musical chairs, but the chairs are disappearing. According to a recent Redfin analysis, September saw the highest rate of homesellers pulling their listings in eight years, reflecting growing hesitation in a cooling housing market.

Delisting domination

US home sellers are asking themselves why they should lower asking prices or negotiate when they can simply pull their listings altogether. According to the report:

• Nearly 85,000 US home sellers took their properties off the market in September 2025.

• That’s a 28% increase from last year and the highest total for any September in eight years.

Why are people taking their homes off the market? It’s mainly because…

It’s a buyer’s market!

Many sellers (especially those who bought during the 2020–2022 housing boom) are holding onto favorable low mortgage rates, so it wouldn’t make sense to sell.

Not to mention, high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty are deterring potential buyers, leaving properties to sit on the market for months.

• Around 70% of active listings in September were “stale”, meaning they’ve lingered at least 60 days without a contract.

• The average home that was delisted had been on the market for around 100 days before being withdrawn.

For most sellers, the only way to get attention from buyers is to offer pretty steep discounts:

• The National Association of Realtors reports that 57% of homes sold in the first ten months of 2025 had price cuts, up from 47% in 2020–2024.

• Additionally, a Redfin report found that roughly 15% of September delistings were on track to sell at a loss, marking a five-year high.

However, you might want to keep a critical eye: Redfin also noted that about one in five delisted homes gets re-listed within a few months, making it look like a new offer that hasn’t had any price cuts.

Scientists now say adolescence ends at age 32

This might help explain your weird uncle. Scientists have, for the first time, identified four ages when the average human brain undergoes rewiring, resulting in five clearly defined stages of development, according to a new study.

How does that work?

The study, released last week (see here), suggests that the human brain does not simply develop, peak, and decline in a smooth progression, but instead goes through five major phases, or epochs.

After examining roughly 3,800 participants, from babies to 90-year-olds, researchers were able to identify those five epochs for the first time:

• Childhood: From birth to age 9, gray and white matter rapidly increase, and extra synapses are pruned.

• Adolescence: From age 9 to age 32, neural networks become more efficient, and cognitive performance improves.

• Adulthood: From age 32 to age 66, the brain’s structure stabilizes, leaving personality and cognitive function mostly the same.

• Early aging: From age 66 to age 83, certain structural properties begin to change as connections become more localized.

• Late aging: Beginning at age 83, connectivity decreases further, and brain structure becomes increasingly localized.

The study challenges long-held beliefs about brain maturity, showing that structural development continues into the early 30s, later than the commonly cited age of 25.

Why is this important? The research may help explain why certain mental‑health or neurological conditions tend to emerge at specific life stages and could also help shed light on how differences in brain wiring affect attention, language, memory, and other behaviours.

Catch up on this week’s weird news

> New DNA evidence suggests modern house cats descended from the North African wildcat and reached Europe about 2,000 years ago, much later than previously believed.

> Despite predictions of an above-average hurricane season, not a single storm made landfall in the US this year, the first time that’s happened in a decade. However, three storms reached Category 5 status, the second-most ever recorded.

 > China is facing an epidemic of “young rat people” who are abandoning career ambitions, limiting social interaction, and spending little; they may prove to be a problem for China’s economy, according to analysts.

 > An internal FDA memo claims at least 10 children died “after and because of” COVID-19 vaccination, prompting the agency to announce more strict safety reviews for future vaccines.

 > The WSJ reports that tobacco is making a comeback in pop culture, as more than half of all movies screened last year featured cigarettes or other tobacco products, up from just 10% the year before.