3 Good Things: Shoe safety, stubborn bowls and $350 million worth of empty beer bottles

Kick off those high heels

Here’s one of those factoids that most people would never imagine, but we instantly recognize as obvious: “During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital visits caused by high-heel-related injuries substantially decreased.” When so many people stopped going to work in an office and going out to socialize, the annual rate of heel-related injuries fell (no pun intended) to about 6,000 from 16,000 in preceding years. That decline doesn’t have to be temporary. Break free from the tyranny of the high heel!

Crowdsourced problem solving

Do you like puzzles? The good folks of Twitter do.

The saga continued…

And continued…

Do it for the brewers

All these years, Germans thought they were just enjoying a cold beer now and then. Turns out they’ve been accumulating wealth. The nation wisely requires most domestic beer to be sold in reusable glass containers, and consumers receive 0.08 euros per bottle if they return the empties — which apparently many folks haven’t been. Breweries are running out of bottles and begging their countrymen to bring back the containers and collect cash. It would be a serious chunk of change. With about 4 billion bottles in circulation, Germany’s drinkers are holding a nest egg worth around $350 million.

And one more ...

Your genes have not locked you into the fate of turning into your parents. It turns out that the correlation between parents’ personality traits and those of their biological children is only about 0.15. So if you’ve been worried about growing up to be like your mother or father, relax. On the other hand, if you happen to like many of their personality traits, there’s good news for you too: You can still choose to be like your parents.