The world's oldest message in a bottle was actually one of more than 1,000 identical bottles that helped shape our understanding of ocean currents.

Last August, retired post office worker Marianne Winkley discovered a mysterious bottle with a message inside on the shores of Amrum — an island in the German North Sea.

Rumors began circulating that Winkley had found the world's oldest message in a bottle, and on March 14 of this year, the official judge — the Guinness World Records — confirmed everyone's suspicions:

"After a careful review of the historic evidence, Guinness World Records has just confirmed that a mysterious postcard found on the shores of Amrum Island, Germany is the Oldest message in a bottle ever," Guinness World Records stated on their website.

The bottle is actually part of a science experiment conducted by British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III.

At the turn of the 20th century, before the age of satellites, GPS, and water-proof electronic trackers, Bidder released 1,020 bottles off the eastern shores of England to see which direction the bottles would travel.

Inside each bottle were clear instructions to break the bottle along with a postcard requesting that whoever discovered it describe where they found it and to return the postcard to the Marine Biological Association (MBA).

More than half of the bottles were collected after the first few months, most of them by sailors, and Bidder was able to prove, for the first time, that the North Sea current flowed from east to west.

When Winkley discovered one of these bottles 108 years later, 310 miles away from the UK, she did exactly what the sailors had done: She completed the postcard and mailed it to the MBA.

While she's a little late to contribute to Bidder's scientific investigations, she can now officially say that she holds the Guinness World Record for discovering the world's oldest message in a bottle.

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The Mar-a-Lago Club is Donald Trump's Florida resort — and home base outside Manhattan.

It's the top-ranked spa in Palm Beach on Trip Advisor, and gets five stars on Yelp. But what's it really like to stay there?

James Taylor, the famous singer-songwriter, spent a week there with his wife and children to perform at a charity gala on the property. His wife, Caroline, penned an account of their stay at the Mar-a-Lago for Vanity Fair.

Calling herself and her husband "dyed-in-the-wool, yellow dog Democrats," Caroline Taylor still attempts to offer an unbiased review of the hotel.

See what it's like to stay at the ultimate in lavish Trump real estate below:

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Mar-a-Lago is a beach and pool club and spa, with rooms, suites, and cottages spread over 20 acres. The club has been the site of everything from Trump's most recent wedding to Maya Angelou's 80th birthday party, hosted by Oprah Winfrey.

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Source: Mar-a-Lago Club

It's one of the most "exotic, larger-than-life" hotels Taylor says she's ever visited. The 118-room resort was built in the 1920s by Marjorie Merriweather Post, America's richest woman, until she bequeathed it to the US government and it fell into disrepair.

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Source: The New York Times

Trump scooped it up in 1985 for less than $10 million, renovated it, and ultimately turned it into the society destination it is today. Taylor describes the clientele as "lacquered blondes" wearing "five-inch Louboutins."

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Sources: The New York Times, Vanity Fair

Analysts from Barclays think a new model for TV is coming, and that “marginal” cable networks won’t survive.

In a massive media report on Monday, the analysts argue that an increase in supply of content will work to crush these marginal, fringe networks, specifically those under the umbrella of Viacom, which owns over a dozen TV networks ranging from MTV to Comedy Central to Spike.

Why? Although the supply of TV content continues to ramp up, Barclays highlights that demand has a natural ceiling.

“Given that the total amount of TV viewership in the US is already at 4 hours and 11 minutes, and total media consumption is at 12 hours, it is unlikely that more content results in an increase in consumption,” the analysts wrote. There’s only so far demand can so up.

So what will the increase in supply do?

The analysts say it will have three effects:

• Viewership peaks will be lower. The hits won’t be as big.
• “Average” content will get viewed more (because of improvements in the process of discovering new shows that aren't big hits or aimed at niche audiences).
• “Marginal content” will go away altogether (“e.g. Viacom”).

In the Barclays future, networks that rely on blockbusters will feel their profit margins tighten.

These hits will reach fewer people, but continue to cost the same amount of cash to produce. This isn’t good news for some networks. “Marginal cable networks are unlikely to be able to survive longer term in this ecosystem,” the analysts write.

But Barclays doesn't think that means networks should stop swinging for the fences and producing blockbusters. Analysts just think those shows will play a different role. Instead of directly helping the bottom line, blockbusters will help raise “awareness” for the platform. The analysts say blockbusters could actually turn out to be loss leaders, and point to Netflix’s “House of Cards” and CBS/NBC’s “Thursday Night Football” as prime examples.  

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“Whereas magic is an art form with the unique power and potential to impact the lives of all people; Whereas magic enables people to experience the impossible; Whereas magic is used to inspire and bring wonder and happiness to others ...”

So begins House Resolution 642 — “Recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure” — brought this week by Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas, with the support of seven congressional co-sponsors.

The resolution, which goes on to list the merits of magic, stirred amusement among media and politicians after it was highlighted by The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel on Twitter.

The office of Rep. Dan Donovan, a Republican from New York, was quick to defend the resolution in a statement to ABC:

Congressman Donovan spent three hours today chairing a hearing to examine the impacts of President Obama's proposed homeland security funding cuts, and three minutes reading a bill that says magic is entertaining. Of course media outlets are choosing to cover the latter, and that's why people are so fed up.

But Sessions’ resolution is about a lot more than just entertainment to those who helped push for it. Tracing the story behind the resolution leads to a century-old magic society, David Copperfield, and a passionate Texas mayor.

“When I was a kid, I was an introvert,” Eric Hogue told Business Insider. “And [magic] brought me out of that. I always tell people that if I hadn’t had magic, I wouldn’t be the mayor.”

Eric Hogue isn’t just the mayor of Wylie, Texas — a city within Sessions’ district — he’s a fervent magic enthusiast, former clown, and a member of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), which says it has been seeking congressional recognition of magic as an art form since the 1960s.

Dal Sanders, who served as SAM’s president in 2013 and 2014, reached out to Hogue about the group's push for artistic recognition. Hogue spoke to Sessions and, after a near-miss thanks to the government shutdown in 2013, Sessions read a statement “In Recognition of the Art of Magic” into the congressional record in April of 2014.

But someone helped convince Hogue that the statement alone would not be enough.

“I have a friend, he’s a magician in Las Vegas,” Hogue said. “His name is David Copperfield.”

Copperfield is likely America’s most successful magician and, as an ambassador for SAM, he joined the battle for recognition.

“It’s a genuine art form that can inspire the next generation of dreamers,” Copperfield told Business Insider. “We looked at the fact that it took many, many years for jazz to become an art form recognized by the US government,” Copperfield said, referring to a 1987 resolution“expressing the sense of Congress respecting the designation of jazz as a rare and valuable national American treasure.”

Copperfield and SAM argue that official recognition would help magicians trying to get grants to support their work — something that is difficult to do now, when magic is often considered a “hobby” and thus ineligible for grants earmarked for bona fide art forms.

Doug Henning, the Canadian magician who starred in the musical "The Magic Show" on Broadway in the 1970s, had studied magic on a grant from Canadian Council for the Arts, is something of a model for what SAM hopes could happen in the US.

On top of funding, magicians might be able to point to a congressional art designation when defending their intellectual property in court — a trickylegal issue in the magic world.

“It’s safe to say that David and I both had input into it,” Hogue said of the bill, noting that he helped add details that Sessions wouldn’t have known about, like the fact that Leonardo da Vinci “co-wrote one of the very first books on magic in the late 15th century.”

As for Copperfield’s contribution to the bill, which mentions him by name eight times, Copperfield defers: “Really it was [Hogue and Sessions’] work,” he said. “It was very flattering to have enough things to put in there that would give resonance to the fact that magic can be taken seriously on many different levels.”

Copperfield called the bill’s references to his career an “amazing honor” and a dream.

Steps forward

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and does not yet have a date set for a vote.

But even if the bill passes, American magicians might have to seek out non-governmental sources for funding. A spokeswoman for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) confirmed there is currently no funding category or program for magic. However, that spokesperson noted that, even if the resolution were to pass, the NEA would require additional congressional authorization to create any new programs.

Hogue, however, doesn’t worry about the bill’s “naysayers.” The resolution already enjoys bipartisan support thanks to cosponsorship by Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat who hosts a Youtube series on magic and Washington. 

“A lot of people might not know this, but when I was younger, I helped pay for college working as a magician,” Pocan told Business Insider in a statement. “Rep. Sessions’s resolution seeks to recognize magic for the positive impact it has on society, something I feel very strongly about.”

“We’re 40 years late getting to the party,” Hogue said, referring to SAM’s decades-long fight for recognition, “but we’re sure thankful to be there.” 

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Audiences have fallen in love with foul-mouthed anti-hero Deadpool. While most people can't stop talking about the film's shocking use of violence, the special effects deserve more attention. They are some of the most convincing we've ever seen in a movie.

Story by Ian Phillips and editing by Chelsea Pineda

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Apple just released its latest ad, which stars the Cookie Monster using the iPhone 6s' hands-free Siri feature as he bakes his favorite treat.

The latest model of the iPhone is the first which continuously listens out for users' "Hey Siri" voice command without having to be plugged into a charger.

In the ad, an impatient Cookie Monster uses Siri to set timers and play music on his iPhone, all while playing around with cooking utensils and waiting for his cookies to bake.

This spot is the latest in a string of iPhone 6s ads featuring celebrities. The others, championing different features of the phone, have starred Jon Favreau, Bill Hader, Jamie Foxx, and Stephen Curry.

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The annual Game Developers Conference is currently underway in San Francisco, and while the focus there may be on the future, the conference's coordinators also took time to show a stirring video honoring gaming's past.

The video was dedicated to Satoru Iwata, the late game programmer from HAL who is best known as Nintendo's president and CEO from 2002 through 2015. Iwata, who died due to cancer last July, was instrumental in launching the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii, the gaming company's most popular devices to date.

Before ascending up the corporate latter, Iwata worked as a programmer, and was partially responsible for the creation of "Balloon Fight," "Kirby," "Earthbound," and the "Super Smash Brothers" series. 

The video showcases Iwata's predominant personality trait: curiosity, and his uncanny ability to transform the mundane into game franchises and hardware that have been enjoyed by millions of people across the world. Iwata always considered himself to be a gamer as much as a game maker, and the tribute makes sure to highlight both sides of him. 

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It's not always easy finding love, and for contestants on "The Bachelor," it can be prohibitively expensive.

In one episode from the recently wrapped 20th season of "The Bachelor," it was rumored that contestant Olivia Caridi had spent $40,000 on her wardrobe for the show.

While that amount isn't confirmed, contestants are required to provide their own clothing — except for the two finalists during the finale — for the duration of their time on the show. Contestants have said, however, that they receive gift bags with sponsored items to use or wear when they arrive.

When contestants pack, they don't know how long they will be in the "Bachelor" mansion. After they have been accepted, they have roughly two to three weeks to tell their employer that they will be gone for up to six weeks and to figure out their financial situation. They are unable to use phones or the internet or to watch TV while at the mansion.

Jillian Harris, the second runner-up from the 13th season of "The Bachelor" and star of the fifth season of "The Bachelorette," wrote on her blog, "I had remortgaged my house and I spent something like $8,000 on clothing."

Some people borrow clothing from friends to avoid spending a ton of money on a new wardrobe. Lesley Murphy, from season 17 of "The Bachelor," told MarketWatch in an article reporting on the lengths "Bachelor" contestants go to for the reality-TV opportunity. "I have really great friends, and they have even better closets."

After making significant changes to their life to appear on the show, some contestants encounter difficulty returning to the normal world.

Murphy was able to return to her old job after leaving the show, though she ended up changing her career path later.

JJ Lane, a contestant on season 11 of "The Bachelorette," told MarketWatch that he had difficulties finding a job after appearing on the show.

"I didn't understand the magnitude of the show and how hard it is to get a real job right after," Lane said. "Everyone knows who you are and employers see it as a distraction." He is still job-searching after the season aired nearly a year ago.

Most contestants get sent home with nothing. But each one has to decide ahead of time whether the shot at finding love — or fame — is worth it.

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One of the most disturbing books I've read in recent memory is now a film.

High Rise, JG Ballard's 1975 classic novel, features a young doctor who moves into a high rise building on the outskirts of London, where the apartments get fancier the higher you go.

Lavish parties happen nightly, and everything you could possibly need is available in the building (including a fully-stocked grocery store). And then everything devolves into class warfare-tinged chaos and filth. 

Here's a look at the trailer:

The building's Brutalist concrete architecture and the evil architect who designed it feature prominently in the storyline, which was originally thought to be a commentary on the state of city planning in London.

"High-Rise caught the popular imagination at a time when suspicion of top-down postwar city planning was growing. 'A hideous warning,' was the quote taken from the Guardian review emblazoned on the book’s cover, suggesting that Ballard’s intention was a damning critique of the inhumane direction modern architecture had taken," explains the Guardian's Oliver Wainwright.

In reality, the story is a little more complex. The violence and ugliness displayed by the building residents as time goes on isn't necessarily because they feel confined by the high rise, but because the structure provides everything they need to live comfortably, giving them freedom to act out their basest impulses. 

High Rise still rings true today. With ongoing controversy about "poor doors" for low-income residents in luxury buildings and supertall skyscrapers that block out the sun, a film about the anxieties that urban architecture brings out in all of us seems appropriate enough.

While I haven't seen the film (which gets solid reviews), I'll be first in line to see JG Ballard's nightmare-scape come to life.

High Rise comes out May 13th in the US.

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Following the news that Sean Parker has started a company that plans to offer rentals of movies still in theaters for $50 each, the biggest directors in Hollywood are coming out with their opinions. And some are strongly opposed to the venture.

The latest opponent is Christopher Nolan, the auteur behind “The Dark Knight” movies and “Inception,” who wrote in an email to Variety on Wednesday, “It would be hard to express the great importance of exclusive theatrical presentation to our industry more compellingly than Jon Landau and James Cameron did,” referring to the earlier statement from Landaru and Cameron, producer and director of "Avatar" and "Titanic," respectively.

“Both Jim and I remain committed to the sanctity of the in-theater experience,” Landau said. “For us, from both a creative and financial standpoint, it is essential for movies to be offered exclusively in theaters for their initial release. We don’t understand why the industry would want to provide audiences an incentive to skip the best form to experience the art that we work so hard to create.”

The Screening Room would offer consumers the option to buy a $150 anti-piracy set-top box to permit them to rent for 48 hours movies that are still showing in theaters. A portion of the $50 fee would go to exhibitors, and customers would receive two tickets to their local multiplex for the movie they rented.

Directors who are for the model include Peter Jackson, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. 

But the National Association of Theatre Owners issued a statement saying that it's against Screening Room. AMC is so far the only large theater chain supporting the model.

“More sophisticated window modeling may be needed for the growing success of a modern movie industry,” the association's statement said. “Those models should be developed by distributors and exhibitors in company-to-company discussions, not by a third party.”

Parker and and cofounder/CEO Prem Akkaraju have yet to speak publicly about Screening Room.

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Recognize that person on the right?

If you said Ewan McGregor or Colin Firth, you're almost right.

The artist Gesichtermix is humble when it comes to his work: He mixes two celebrity faces together to create a surreal hybrid.

"The idea of mixing celebrity faces is actually quite old for computer standards," he told Business Insider.

In fact, Morpher, the 400-kilobyte program he uses to create his images, was developed in 1998 and can't even process JPG files. Gesichtermix — "gesichter" meaning "faces" in German — must first convert the image to a bitmap, and the entire process can take up to two hours to perfect a single face.

"I always try to mix two people that have something to do with each other, but sometimes I'm just mixing them because the faces are fitting," said Gesichtermix.

Below are 11 examples of his beautiful work:

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Taylor Swift and Emma Stone

Ed Harris and Kevin Costner

Ewan McGregor and Colin Firth

Hillary Clinton made a cameo on Comedy Central's "Broad City" that was equal parts awkward and amazing, and it allowed her to check off both the female and millennial demographics at the same time.

On Wednesday's episode, newly unemployed Ilana (Ilana Glazer) found herself at the Clinton campaign offices as a cold-caller when the campaign coordinator ("Sex and the City's" Cynthia Nixon) informed her that the gig isn't a paying job.

Nevertheless, Ilana was still proud to be breathing the same air and walking on the same floor as Clinton. While giving best friend Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) a tour of the campaign office, the candidate dropped in.

"Secretary Clinton, madam pres-zee-dant, she-king," an overwhelmed Ilana greeted Clinton, before explaining that she couldn't afford to volunteer full-time for the campaign, but still intended to get the word out.

The otherwise stilted appearance by the candidate turned an awesome corner when she showed the gals what she intended to do in order to bring some energy to the office.

Not only did she drag in and turn on one of those inflatable dancers you see outside a car dealership that's badly trying to get your attention — she stood next to it, put her arms out like the inflatable, and exclaimed, "Look at that!"

She then added, "I thought this would be good for office morale. Isn't she great?"

Yes, she is. Clinton is always playing to the crowd.

Watch the Clinton cameo on "Broad City" in full below:

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NOW WATCH: Watch a former death row inmate who spent 39 years in prison question Clinton on the death penalty

To cut costs, jails don't exactly offer gourmet meals.

Several participants on A&E's documentary series "60 Days In" learned that the hard way. The show follows seven undercover inmates who spend two months in an Indiana jail under false identities to expose problems with the system.

In fact, some of what the inmates ate hardly resembled food you'd find on any plate outside bars. Clark County Jail spends about $1 on each inmate's meal, an A&E representative confirmed, and participants suggested throughout the series that the meager budget was obvious.

Barbra, one of the participants on the show, told Business Insider:

The worst meal I ever acquired in jail was beans. That was literally the entire meal. Beans with disgusting little wormy looking maggot things in it, served with raw uncooked onion and a tiny piece of over-dry corn bread.

That was a dinner meal, and if you chose not to eat it, then you typically went hungry for 14 hours until breakfast the next morning. For me, the meal was so bad, that I started skipping it for dinner and starving myself until breakfast the next morning. It was literally inedible for me.

In other jails and prisons around the country, budgets per meal are as little as $0.56, according to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit publication that covers the criminal-justice system in the US. Local, state, and federal laws all govern nutritional standards.

Two videos produced by A&E to accompany the series show just how bad it can get. One video shows a grim portion of "jailhouse fish and chips" — sardines, bread, a few potato chips and a dollop of mysterious "white sauce" unceremoniously thrown together on the plate.

Jot down this recipe for Jailhouse Fish and Chips. #60DaysInhttps://t.co/zeoKNdfTld

— A&E Network (@AETV) March 14, 2016

"The food is depressing, the scenery is depressing," Tami, another participant, said in a scene in the show's second episode. "I mean, if you weren't super depressed when you came in here, you feel a bit of that."

Another video details how to make "prison pizza" — mushy ramen noodles and crackers topped with salsa, spray cheese, and chunks of processed meat. Inmates can make the dish if they pool together enough ingredients purchased from the jail commissary, a store of sorts where inmates can buy basic supplies, like toiletries, as well as food items.

How to throw a prison pizza party. #60DaysInhttps://t.co/UxlNTufJ5j

— A&E Network (@AETV) March 9, 2016

Several scenes from the show demonstrate the role food plays in the social life of inmates. In one scene from the third episode, which airs Thursday, a participant named Zac scores an invite to a "slam," a potluck dinner of commissary items hosted in a cell.

In an earlier episode, Zac knows the group has accepted him when an inmate hands him a pack of ramen noodles.

"In there, ramen is like the common currency. It's like gold," he said in the third episode.

On special occasions, such as a birthday or someone's last day in jail, inmates prepare "jail cake" for one another, Barbra told Business Insider. The inmates make dough out of crushed-up peanut butter cookies, then layer it with melted Reese's cups and cappuccino mix.

They then melt a Hershey bar by leaving it in a cup of microwaved water with the wrapper on. Once it's melted, they can tear off a corner of the wrapper and drizzle the cake with chocolate.

Once it's finished, they "refrigerate" the cake by placing it on a bowl of ice for two hours.

"In jail, you learn to become very innovative with meal preparation," Barbra said.

The show's third episode airs Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on A&E.

SEE ALSO: 7 people went undercover as inmates for 2 months, and they revealed harrowing details about an Indiana jail

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NOW WATCH: This is why America's prison system is broken

Hillary Clinton made a guest appearance on this week's episode of Comedy Central's  “Broad City”, a show centered around two best friends, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, trying to make it in New York City. 

Produced by Emma Fierberg

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The concept of a TV network will likely become obsolete as the entertainment landscape fundamentally shifts, according to analysts at Barclays.

In a recent report on the future of media, Barclays analysts argued that as “aggregation” platforms become the primary driver of eyeballs — think Netflix, or even a “Netflix of Netflixs” — the idea of a channel doesn’t make much sense anymore.

Think about how you discover content on Netflix. You don’t type in “AMC” to find the next show like "Breaking Bad." Instead, Netflix serves you up similar titles from whichever network it wants. Netflix's recommendation engine uses the “show” as its basic unit of content, not the channel. Netflix even strips the branding from many of the shows it licenses from networks.

This is how the analysts believe most TV will work in the future. They argue that “aggregation” will win the day, and that a Netflix of Netflixs will become the starting point for every session of TV watching. And in this world, TV companies will have to figure out a new way for the idea of a “channel” to add value to their shows.

New Networks

That doesn’t mean that “networks” will cease to exist in all forms, just that they will undergo major changes, according to the analysts. They see channels shifting away from trying to hit a basic demographic (think “Nickelodeon for children”), toward a much more concentrated theme, like PewDiePie on YouTube. In short, channels will work much more like they do on the internet than on TV.

And in this future, the line between channel and show will sometimes be blurred. “Is Katy Perry’s channel on YouTube a network or episodes of a program?” the analysts ask. The answer might be that it doesn’t particularly matter, as long as it’s something you can subscribe to, which can appear on your “queue” or “feed.”

Instead of being a destination you go to (turning on AMC), successful channels will have a more concrete (and narrow) identity that allows them to thrive in an “aggregation” world, according to the analysts.

The analysts point to a few legacy companies who are experimenting with this now: “Verizon’s attempt at Go90" and "Comcast’s attempt with SeeSo and Watchable.” It's worth noting, however, that none of these has so far appeared to generate much enthusiasm from the public.

SEE ALSO: Here's one theory on which cable networks will die

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Would you shell out $200 for a daily smoothie you had to blend at home?

Probably not. What about a $10 equivalent that comes in a bottle?

If the answer is "yes," or even "mayyyybe," please read on.

Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow recently shared the recipe for her daily breakfast smoothie on her blog Goop.com. And Daily News writer Micaela Hood called out its hefty price tag: about $200 a glass.

At first, the recipe sounds fairly typical as far as smoothies go — almond milk, almond butter, a pinch of optional vanilla powder — but then you get to the mushroom powder and the hard-to-pronounce ingredients such as ashwagandha and cordyceps.

Before we get to those odd additions to her morning beverage, let's nip a blossoming but nasty health rumor in the bud.

First things first: Swapping out a regular meal for a liquid blend does not necessarily make it healthier.

Here's what you might be thinking: OK, so Gwyneth's smoothie is bogus and overpriced. No surprise there. But smoothies and juices overall are super-healthy, right?

After all, they pack the vitamins and nutrients in whole fruits and veggies without the added inconvenience of (loudly) chewing your way through them.

While the gist of this is true — liquid fruits and veggies still contain the whole versions' vitamins and nutrients — juicing them doesn't necessarily mean you're getting more of the good stuff and eliminating the bad stuff.

On the contrary, juicing up a fleshy orange or starchy carrot merely removes most of its fiber, the key ingredient that helps keep us feeling full and also aids in digestion. And it leaves us with the full sugar content of the original food; this is why a glass of orange juice can pack nearly the same sugar content as a glass of Coke.

But what about all those mysterious, fancy-sounding ingredients in Gwyneth's breakfast blend?

It turns out they have zero proven health benefits. In fact, most of the research on them has been done in mice. And mice, as we know, are not people.

"There aren’t really any clinical trials to even say what they do," Andy Bellatti, a registered dietician and the co-founder of the group Dietitians for Professional Integrity, told Business Insider. "Could they potentially have benefits? Could they potentially help lower your cholesterol? Maybe. But we just don’t have that information."

The ones Paltrow says she adds are mostly powders called Moon Dust— yes, Moon Dust — or tonics, and they're made by a company called Moon Juice. The blends are available in over a dozen varieties and claim to help improve everything from sex to sleep.

AsDomingo J. Pinero, the director of undergraduate studies at New York University's School of Nutrition and Food Studies and a clinical assistant professor of nutrition, put it to Business Insider:

"From the perspective of nutrition, there's nothing special there," he said. "Almond butter is what it is. Vanilla mushroom powder ... the ingredients are 'activated brown rice protein' with a mix of mushroom, so even the name is misleading. And coconut oil. Those are the only things with nutritional value. The rest are dietary supplements that you can buy in Chinatown for a fraction of the cost (and probably with adequate instructions for use). I'm not impressed."

With that in mind, we took a look at some of the most popular ingredients Paltrow includes in her daily smoothie. Here's the lowdown on each:

• Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera): Allegedly helpful for soothing anxiety, improving sleep, and boosting virility. According to the research though, there's just not yet enough evidence— aside from some promising studies in animals— to say it does any of that.
• Ho Shou Wu (Fo-Ti root): Allegedly helps boost "youthfulness," reproductive function, and sex drive. But experts say there's not enough evidence to verify any of these claims.
• Cordyceps (a special type of mushroom that attaches itself to a caterpillar and uses its carcass as food): Allegedly boosts strength and energy. Evidence of this, though, is limited. A study from Brigham Young University researchers of endurance-trained cyclists found that cordyceps did not increase aerobic capacity or physical performance, while other studies have suggested potential benefits in mice but not people.
• Vanilla mushroom (brown rice protein plus some of the other ingredients above): Allegedly boosts the immune system, builds muscle, supports the liver, nourishes the heart and spirit, relieves stress, and imparts "feelings of centeredness." The brown rice protein should help build muscle — protein is key for muscle maintenance and growth — but the other ingredients are probably unnecessary.

So there you have it. You don't need a $200 smoothie to get healthier. Or a $10 one, for that matter. Instead, check out these tips:

LIKE: 11 essential tips for anyone who wants to start looking and feeling healthier now

OR: What the author of 'Eat Fat, Get Thin' eats — and avoids — every day

Join the conversation about this story »

While "Deadpool" is still owning the box office, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is about to become the biggest new movie of the season when it hits theaters next week.

Yet the blockbuster is still shrouded in secrecy.

The latest multi-superhero epic has yet to screen for critics, even while stars Ben Affleck (Batman), Henry Cavill (Superman), and Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) have done rounds of press.

But Warner Bros. has just released a huge batch of new photos that give a closer look at key moments from the film, including behind-the-scenes shots of the actors at work with director Zack Snyder ("Man of Steel," "300").

A lot is riding on the latest from Snyder, who's already signed on to helm two "Justice League" movies next. We'll see if it cashes in at the box office, but at least based on this glimpse, the visuals look stunning.

Check out the photos from "Batman v Superman" and what you need to know about it below.

SEE ALSO: The best and worst Ben Affleck movies, ranked

The movie centers on a heated battle between Batman and Superman, though they ultimately join forces against a larger evil.

As for the evil, that comes from villain Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). Eisenberg didn't have to bulk up for the role like his costars. He joked that he was Affleck and Cavill's "spotter" in the on-set gym.

With an acting career spanning 25 years, Neve Campbell is fully aware of the pay disparity between men and women in the entertainment industry.

"I know for a fact that I've not been paid equally on any job for whatever position I've been in," Campbell recently told Business Insider.

That isn't unique to Campbell or the entertainment business. In fact, studies have shown that women across the board were paid 79% of what men were paid in 2014, a 21% pay gap.

Currently getting rave reviews for her turn as political strategist Leann Harvey on Netflix's "House of Cards," Campbell was introduced to most viewers on the 1990s Fox teen drama "Party of Five."

"I know that when I started, I don't want to be specific, but when I started a television series, I had worked a lot more than my male counterparts going into it," the 42-year-old said in what might be a reference to "Party of Five." "And I was offered quite a bit less and made quite a bit less the entire time."

Over the years, she landed indelible roles in movies like the "Scream" franchise, "The Craft," and "Wild Things," among many others. And in recent years, she has popped up in small guest roles on "Mad Men," "Welcome to Sweden," and "Grey's Anatomy."

Campbell didn't like being paid less than her male costars, but she found the problem was deeply ingrained into the way Hollywood does business.

"My agents at the time said that's just the way it is: Men get paid more," she remembers.

"And it's terrible at this day and age that that still exists. How is that possible that we're not being paid equally and that we're having to have this conversation in 2016? It's insane that we're even discussing this. It shouldn't exist. Listen, we're lucky, as women, to be in this country, because there is a lot more inequality in other countries. But at the same time, it's America. We're smart enough to know better."

The pay gap conversation found new life in 2014, when the Sony hacking revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams made less than their male costars Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Jeremy Renner for "American Hustle." Lawrence would wait nearly a year before addressing the wage gap in Lena Dunham's newsletter, Lenny, saying that she was more angry with herself for not pushing harder for a higher salary.

But according to Campbell, those kinds of negotiations can be tricky for actresses.

"I haven't had that power yet," she said of demanding to be paid equally to her male counterparts. "Maybe, on the 'Scream' films. When you have a lot of weight behind you, when there isn't a choice in the matter, then you can push. But if there's a choice, you're always going to get less."

SEE ALSO: Neve Campbell explains why she took a break from Hollywood: 'I got tired of the game'

SEE ALSO: Neve Campbell says similarities between 'House of Cards' and 2016 election are 'astonishing in a bad way'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: All the new Netflix shows you’ll be binge-watching this year

Not everything in the military is all action. And not all action in the military is actually as it is portrayed in Hollywood at all. 

Responding to a recent Reddit question "what things do movies get hilariously wrong about the military," hundreds of military service members from a number of countries chime in on how their military experience was nothing at all like what is displayed on the silver screen. 

The answers range from the technical, such as how uniforms are often incredibly wrong, to the critical, such as how an artillery strike extremely close to a soldier's position will likely result in death or injury. We've collected some of the most eye opening answers about what the military is actually like below. 

Reddit member endlessbloodorgy shared: "Not enough cussing. Not even close." 

And Newguy6962579 chimed in that what bothered him most was:

When no one knows their job and the lead folks are always micromanaging. You don't have to tell marines to shoot at the bad guys.

Also, "That's an order!"

Pyronaut44 noted that the ages in the movies never seem true to life:

Ages always seem well off, movies and TV shows seem to have Private soldiers averaging in their 30's whereas reality is more 19/20 years old. A realistic depiction of your typical infantry platoon would have audiences wondering why all these kids are running about playing soldiers.

Commenter rick7475 noted:

What I hate the most is how easy it is to kill or take out trained soldiers or mercenaries who were probably veterans. Some spy or hero sneaks on base, a few kicks and hits, and the guards with automatic weapons are down for the count. Also, one shot takes out a soldier when the hero gets wounded a dozen times and still has strength to defuse the fakest looking bomb ever or save the cute honey trapped in a high security cell.

When its a military picture or TV show, they always focus on the officers as heroes, never the squad members or NCO's that most officers give credit for getting the job done.

Or even the tactics, and I'm looking at you "Saving Private Ryan", sending man after man to take out a pill box and only after a dozen are dead deciding on using a sniper.

For user bleachmike51, his complaints were much more technical:

Popped collar on ACU's, no patches, soldiers running into combat with patrol caps and berets.... list goes on. Try watching the military in the flash and not cringing.

Reddit member tcain5188 noted that for many in the military, the jobs are not at all close to combat: "not enough people at desks pretending to work."

And Tyrantt_47 echoed that unlike in the movies, few people in the military are in peak physical shape:  "hardly anyone I knew in the military was ripped"

Commentor p00d73 shared a hard truth about combat in the military:

Artillery impacts. When the heroes get shelled, they just seem to brush off the dirt from the massive explosion 5m next to them and continue fighting. In movies an artillery barrage always seems like a minor annoyance instead of a slaughterfest.

User tacsquid wrote:

Everyone is always an officer and uses military radio jargon in real life conversations. People don't even say that sh-- over the radio ffs. Also in movies EVERYTHING is bullet proof when in real life very few things are. Everything is always super clean and neat. Girls have nice hair and makeup. No one has salty crust on their uniform from not being able to wash clothes. Officers also always give out orders and sh-- like everyone else is a robot. on a patrol a good officer shouldn't be doing sh-- except talking on the radio to the TOC for CAS. Everyone should already know what to do and the NCOs can handle the rest.

edit

also suppressors!

And in reply to tacsquid, SavageHenry0311 shared his own personal experience:

Speaking of suppressors -

Nobody seems to understand how f------ LOUD sh-- is.

I was in a gunfight in a stairwell once, and my left ear is still ringing 10 years later.

In the movies, they do a few mag dumps in an elevator/car/parking garage....and then whisper back and forth 3 minutes later.

What?

SEE ALSO: Service members share their favorite parts of life in the military

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NOW WATCH: A Navy SEAL explains why he’ll never go skydiving as a civilian again

Spotify is always looking for rising artists, highlighting them through playlists on the streaming service like "Fresh Finds" and "Spotlight" that introduce new talent to millions of listeners.

Business Insider talked to a trends expert at Spotify, Shanon Cook, about 10 artists who are quickly gaining steam, and she shared their listener data.

Six of the 10 artists are performing this week at the Spotify House at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin — where music insiders descend annually to discover the best breakout musicians — while some are there for other showcases and shows. 

Here are 10 artists who are making waves this year: 

SEE ALSO: These 13 massive hit songs were originally rejected by other artists

Anderson .Paak

Anderson .Paak released his second album, "Malibu," in mid-January, and announced at the end of the month that he was signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment label. The rapper/singer had performed on six songs off of Dre's acclaimed 2015 album, "Compton." He performed on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in February and is hitting up the Spotify House at SXSW. He has 1.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify. He was listed as one of Billboard's artists to watch at SXSW.

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Jack Garratt

A one-man band who also produces his own music, Garrett has been generating attention following the release of his debut album, "Phase," on February 19. The British artist won the critics choice award at the 2016 Brit Awards. Garrett played at the Spotify House at SXSW and currently has 3.4 million monthly listeners on the streaming service. His song "Worry" has more than 20 million streams.

"He not only has tremendous talent, but momentum is on his side, and he's only going to get bigger," Cook said. 

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Wet

This Brooklyn-based trio's album "Don't You" was released in January, and they have several tracks streaming in the millions on Spotify.

"They are one of those bands that at the end of the year, people will be saying they killed it in 2016," Cook said. 

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