Good morning! It's Sunday, May 10, and welcome to our Sunday Edition, where we take a break from the news to explore the deeper context behind today's topics (our regular news digest will be back tomorrow).
Happy Mother's Day! In honor of moms everywhere, we took a look at the incredible process of pregnancy that brings life into the world. We'll then cover the ancient practice of yoga that remains popular around the globe today. After that, we have an explainer on the female-founded dating app Bumble.
Scroll down to learn about how animals feel about human music, the percentage of new websites using AI to generate language, and more. Or visit 1440 Topics for primers on Biohacking, Hip-Hop, or 500 others.
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— 1440 Topics Team
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Dear Readers—Our Sunday edition delivers deep dives into interesting and relevant topics, helping you explore new ideas and feed your curiosity.
Instead of the news—which we cover Monday through Saturday—today we’ll bring you deeply researched overviews and the human-curated articles, podcasts, videos, and more that most fascinated us this week.
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Pregnancy, explained
Pregnancy is the roughly 280-day journey from conception to birth that powers the continuation of the human species. After sperm meets egg and the resulting blastocyst embeds in the uterine lining, the human body undergoes significant physiological changes to support the growth and development of this cluster of cells, enabling it to become an embryo and then a fetus.
Pregnancy triggers changes to every organ in a pregnant woman's body. As the uterus expands, abdominal organs shift; heart rate increases as it pumps more blood; feet may grow larger; and brain areas heavily involved in processing information and emotions shrink by an average of 5%. Along the way, some women experience symptoms including nausea, mood swings, heightened sense of smell, congestion, and shortness of breath. In 2023, roughly 3.6 million babies were born in the US.
In the US, miscarriage is the most common complication of pregnancy, occurring in as many as 20% of pregnancies—or roughly 1,000,000 cases annually. There are also around 21,000 stillbirths each year, and the same number of deaths during an infant's first year of life.
... Read what else we learned about pregnancy here.
Also, check out ...
> Your mother's feet may have expanded—permanently—due to pregnancy. (Read)
> The placenta acts as lungs, kidneys, and more in the womb. (Watch)
> Babies can taste their mother's food in the womb. (Read)
> Ancient Egyptians developed the first pregnancy test, and scientists found it was surprisingly accurate when they tested it in the 1960s. (Read)
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Yoga, explained
Yoga is a spiritual, mental, and physical practice that dates back to ancient India. Originally developed as a diverse set of spiritual and physical practices aimed at achieving higher consciousness, yoga is now primarily associated with exercise and mindfulness. In India, however, it remains a spiritual practice, a significant form of healthcare, and an expression of the country’s soft power.
Yoga can be traced back to around 1500 BCE and was practiced by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and other various ethnic and religious groups. It gained Western popularity throughout the 20th century, thanks to traveling gurus, mass media, and a countercultural interest in Eastern spirituality.
Today, yoga is a popular form of exercise that’s believed to have a positive effect on both mental and physical health. About one in six US adults practices yoga, with women twice as likely to do so as men. It’s also popular with professional athletes, who find the practice enhances their performance.
... Explore what else we found on yoga here.
Also, check out ...
> Steve Jobs mandated that a legendary book on yoga be distributed at his memorial service. (Read)
> How an 1893 speech in Chicago set the stage for yoga in the US. (Explore)
> The Beatles' visit with a famous guru helped inspire Western interest in Eastern spirituality. (Watch)
> The governor of Oklahoma was criticized for his association with yoga in 1927. (Read)
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Bumble, 101
Founded in Austin, Texas, in 2014, Bumble is the second-largest dating app by market share in the US. In a crowded industry, it found success by positioning itself as female-centric, with its defining feature being that only women could initiate conversations on the app.
Bumble CEO and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd has said she was inspired to create a safer dating app for women after witnessing the harassment she saw female users face on Tinder (Wolfe Herd cofounded Tinder and served as its VP of marketing). Wolfe Herd became the youngest female CEO ever to take a company public with Bumble's 2021 IPO.
But as of early 2026, Bumble's stock price had decreased roughly 90% since its IPO, falling from more than $70 per share to around $4 per share as of mid-April 2026.
The company has faced numerous controversies in recent years, including a poorly received 2024 rebrand (complete with a hotly debated campaign that critics argued denounced celibacy) and a large round of layoffs in 2025 that many claimed Wolfe Herd mishandled.
... Read our full page on Bumble here.
Also, check out ...
> Bumble's origin story includes a Russian billionaire, a Tinder cofounder, and a private jet. (Listen)
> Whitney Wolfe Herd sued Tinder for sexual discrimination and harassment. (Read)
> Hulu debuted a movie about Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2025. (Read)
> How dating apps make money. (Watch)
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What Legacy Will You Leave Your Family?
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Historybook: First American transcontinental railroad is completed (1869); Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of the UK (1940); Former NASA astronaut Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space, born (1958); Actress Joan Crawford dies (1977); Nelson Mandela inaugurated as president of South Africa (1994).
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