Craft beer in America is more popular than ever.

Today’s drinkers become more educated by the day, and the breadth of choices available to them has never been so extensive. This is great for beer lovers (and beneficial on the supply side as well), as a high-quality product created by friendly, local brewers gets consumers to open their wallets a little wider.

It’s no longer uncommon for enthusiasts to plan a brewery visit into their vacation. In fact, the opposite is trending: Plenty of people I know actually plan their vacations around a great beer destination.

Remote, highly respected breweries such as Russian River (Santa Rosa, CA) and Hill Farmstead (Greensboro, VT) are regularly hit up by this crowd.

Keep scrolling for 20 recommended cities to visit on your beer-based travels (listed in no particular order).

SEE ALSO: 22 American craft breweries every beer lover should know

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San Diego, California

AleSmith's consistently excellent IPAs, stouts, porters, and barleywines impress critics year in and year out.

Right down the road from AleSmith is one of SoCal's better-known craft breweries: Ballast Point, with 27 taps and specialty drafts.

Green Flash Brewing is also in the neighborhood, and bring your appetite: these guys love their food trucks.

A short drive east down I-8 leads to the Alpine Beer Company, home of some of the world's best IPAs. I'm not sure why the best IPAs seem to come from rural breweries (Hill Farmstead, Kern River, Alpine), but I don't particularly care. Each is worth the drive.

2008 saw San Francisco's acclaimed Toronado open a sister location in San Diego. This craft beer bar has 56 draft lines and an impressive bottle list. Plus, they often unleash top-notch limited brews for their special events.

Austin, Texas

(512) Brewing sends kegs all over Austin and South Texas. I enjoy their Pecan Porter.

Jester King began brewing farmhouse-style ales in 2009 and quickly developed a loyal following. Although state law prohibits them from selling beer directly to customers, the brewery tour is a fun way to spend an afternoon in the Texas Hill Country.

Live Oak Brewing's focus on a just handful of beer styles pays off: Their hefeweizen is among the best anywhere.

Drive about hour south on I-35 to Freetail Brewing in San Antonio, where you’ll find an enjoyable mix of traditional American ales with barrel-aged stouts and wild ales. In my opinion, it's the best brewery in Texas.

Grand Rapids / Kalamazoo, Michigan

Founders Brewing has mastered the art of producing exceptionally high-quality beer on a macro scale. Their Grand Rapids brewpub is a popular destination.

In Kalamazoo, Bell's Brewery bottles and kegs an impressively diverse range of beers for all tastes. Some of their best work is only found at the brewpub, however, so stop by to see for yourself.

Since famously declining an invitation to appear in a Nickelback video, Dark Horse Brewing's fanbase has grown rapidly.

While the celebrity lifestyle may appear to be filled with glitzy red carpets and A-list events, there's plenty that goes on behind-the-scenes that isn't quite as glamorous.

Behind most celebrities is a team of people working to make sure everything looks perfect and runs smoothly in the hectic life of a star. In addition to agents, managers, publicists, and a glam squad, many stars also have a personal assistant managing the logistics of their hectic lives.

From booking flights to planning meetings and anything in between, assistants are the backbone of the busy schedules of many stars and entrepreneurs..

In New York, assistants for many leading celebrities and business moguls participate in a professional group called New York Celebrity Assistants.

We spoke with seven assistants from the association and learned about what it's like to work for a high-profile employer in New York City.

SEE ALSO: The 11 assistants who run Hollywood

MORE: 9 things I learned working as a celebrity assistant

Meghan Herd helps handle the chaotic life of "Real Housewives" mogul Bethenny Frankel

"No two days are ever the same" when working for Skinnygirl Cocktails founder Bethenny Frankel, Frankel's executive assistant, Meghan Herd, tells Business Insider. 

Herd began working for the entrepreneur and star of Bravo's "The Real Houswives of New York" in 2013, after deciding that she "needed a change" from her job as an assistant to a number of leading musicians.

As Frankel's assistant, Herd says she now wears "many hats." 

"Whether I am trying to get a seat on a flight an hour before take-off, getting a table at the hottest new restaurant or making sure the office is running smoothly," Herd says, "I am proud of getting things done when somebody says it can’t be done." 

Herd occassionally appears alongside her employer on "Real Housewives," and in an interview with Hollywood Life, Herd describes the experience of handling Frankel's chaotic travel schedule as being "like that scene in 'Home Alone' — we're just running to the gate everytime."

Vanessa King has worked closely with Julianne Moore for nearly ten years

2014 was a busy year for actress Julianne Moore.

As the assistant to Moore and her husband, filmmaker Bart Freundlich, Vanessa King acted as a “sort of Mission Control” for the actress’s travel plans and schedules during the hectic award season that culminated in Moore’s Oscar win for Best Actress.

King started the job nearly a decade ago, after leaving another assistant gig with the family who lived across the street from Moore. “I ran into Julie on the street,” King says, “and she asked if I was interested in working with her.” 

Today, King works out of her employers’ luxurious West Village apartment, acting as a contact point for business matters and charities — such as The Children’s Health Fund and the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, in which Moore is actively involved.

Gail Abrahamsen is the right-hand woman to "Shark Tank" star and real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran

Gail Abrahamsen became the personal assitant to real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran in 2005, and her job has grown in responsibilty as Corcoran's star has risen in recent years with her recurring role as a judge on ABC's "Shark Tank."

Handling Corcoran's three email accounts, Abrahamsen responds to over 300 emails per day. "Many hours are spent managing her endless media/TV appearance requests and making sure all are on the calendar (our bible)," Abrahamsen says. 

When Corcoran requested a lavish launch party for her book, "Shark Tales," in 2011, Abrahamsen managed to come through with all of her employer's eclectic demands — including finding a model to dress up as a mermaid and two twin girls to greet her guests in swimsuits. 

Whether planning out her employer's many speaking events or tracking down a "lost heirloom pearl necklace at the XpresSpa in JFK airport," Abrahamsen admits that there's "never a dull moment" on the job.

"Every day is a new adventure at Barbara Corcoran Inc.," she says.

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Contrary to what the '90s would have you believe, men didn't always wear long board shorts to the beach. 

Before swimsuits were so heavily influenced by sport, they were inspired by modesty. Gradually, hemlines were raised — until we reached Speedo levels in the '70s. After that, the '80s made way for showing less and less thigh. But surprise! In 2015 we're flipping the switch again.  

This is all according to a new video by Mode, which chronicles the last 100 years of men's swimwear.

Keep scrolling to see the cyclical pattern of bathing attire from 1915 to 2015.

SEE ALSO: 100 years of American men's fashion, in pictures

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1915

1925

1935

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Kansas State University has unveiled its new $65 million football facility.

The Vanier Family Football Complex is the biggest piece in the school's $125 million in athletic facility upgrades at and was funded in part by a $20 million donation to the school from the Vanier family. Of the remaining cost, $30 million came from donations to the school with $15 million coming from athletic department revenues.

The school opened the facility to the players for the first time this week and released a video of the tour. Here are some screenshots of some of the swankiest features.

The new facility is located in the north end zone of Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Here is how that part of the stadium has changed.

The players were in awe as they entered the facility.

The first thing they see is a bunch of TVs showing football games.

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Sophie de Oliveira Barata, who has been called"the undisputed queen of personalized prosthetics," has "always been interested in merging the imagination with reality," she said, during a TEDMED talk in San Francisco. "I like tricking the eye with what's real and what's not." 

With a background in art and special-effects makeup, she worked for a prosthetics manufacturer before deciding to strike out on her own. "It meant I could use my creative skills and do something massively rewarding," she told The New York Times.

In her UK studio, she creates remarkably realistic and wildly imaginative prosthetic limbs, custom-made based on each person's requests and dreams. She calls it The Alternative Limb Project.

Some of her bespoke prosthetics integrate surreal designs like snakes, stereos, and secret compartments, and some are so lifelike it's uncanny. She gave us permission to share images that show off some of her most realistic prosthetic creations — and the intricate process she uses to make them.

Sophie de Oliveira Barata, here in her studio, needs about a month of careful work to craft a realistic arm or leg, she told us via email.

The limb-creation process starts with a foam shape that mimics the client's natural body shape. After sculpting the body part in foam, she uses a cast to mold the silicone. Here she's removing a leg cover from the cast used to shape it.

She makes the skin that covers the limb from a silicone substance, tinted with pigments to exactly match a person's skin color.

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Through one lens, the study of philosophy is the purest intellectual quest there is. Through another, it's a punch line.

(Q: How many philosophers does it take to change a light-bulb?

A: Three: one to change the lightbulb, and to to debate whether they ought to, and if so, whether it follows that they can. This one is from The Philosopher's Cocoon, but are more where that came from.)

But while it's easy to dismiss philosophy as one of the "soft" humanities that is, as star venture capitalist Marc Andreessen once said, a sure path to "working in a shoe store," it's also short-sighted. 

It's true that most high-powered jobs won't have you curled up in a cubical debating the finer points of Heidegger, but it's also true that the skills you learn studying those ideas — how to think critically, write well, analyze complicated concepts, and sell ideas — can pay off in the business world. And as these 12 industry leaders prove, they can pay off big.  

This is an update of an article originally written by Max Nisen.

SEE ALSO: Tech CEO says this incredibly simple exercise can help you rethink your career

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina was a medieval history and philosophy major at Stanford University.

Fiorina was president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005 and served as chairwoman of the board from 2000 to 2005. 

In addition to her undergraduate degree in medieval history and philosophy, which she earned in 1976, she holds an MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, and an M.S. in business from MIT's Sloan School, reports CNN. These days, she's making a bid for president of the United States.

Activist investor Carl Icahn was a philosophy major at Princeton University.

Icahn is the chairman of Icahn Enterprises and is one of the most well-known and aggressive activist investors of our time, buying and eventually folding Trans World Airlines, and more recently cashing in big on Netflix. 

His philosophy thesis for his 1957 degree was titled "The Problem of Formulating an Adequate Explication of the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning," reported the New York Times. He also went to New York University's Medical School, but dropped out without graduating.

Former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair was a philosophy major at the University of Kansas.

Until the summer of 2011, Bair served as the chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, having been appointed by George W. Bush in 2005.  Since then, she's written the non-fictional "Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself," and a fictional YA novel on the same topic, "The Bullies of Wall Street." This spring, she was appointed president of Washington College.

Bair received her B.A. in philosophy from the University of Kansas and later got a J.D. from the same school. 

The US has an enormous economy, and that economy is the sum of the economies of 50 states and the District of Columbia.

We noted previously that those state economies are big enough and complex enough to compare with those of entire countries, and so we are once again taking a closer look at what makes those economies work.

We ranked the economies of these states, and DC's, on seven measures: unemployment rates, gross domestic product per capita, average weekly wages, and recent growth rates for nonfarm payroll jobs, GDP, house prices, and wages.

While we didn't factor them into the ranking, we also looked at the Fortune 1000 companies that have their headquarters in each state and which industries were disproportionately important in each state. This helped us get a little more insight into what makes each state economy tick.

For more details on methodology and sources, click here.

SEE ALSO: 16 charts that illustrate America's global dominance

51. Mississippi

Mississippi came in last in our ranking of state economies. Chicken, soybean, cotton, and rice farming are among the state's most disproportionately large employers.

Mississippi had the lowest 2014 GDP per capita of any of the states, at just $35,019, and the lowest Q4 2014 weekly wage, at $747. The rate at which both of those measures was changing were also weak: Mississippi had the second-lowest GDP growth rate, with state GDP shrinking by 1.2%. The average weekly wage grew just 2.3% between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014.

50. West Virginia

West Virginia's economy revolves around the coal industry, with underground and surface coal mining coming in as the most disproportionately important industries in the state.

West Virginia was one of just two states in which fewer people were working in June 2015 than in June 2014, with a drop of 1.2% in nonfarm payrolls over the year. The Appalachian state was also one of only three states where housing prices dropped between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015, and had the biggest drop in the state housing price index, falling 3.90%. One bright spot was that GDP grew by 5.1% in 2014, higher than the national rate of 2.2%.

49. Alabama

Alabama has several manufacturing industries, including textile mills, logging operations, and poultry hatcheries.

Alabama's 2014 per capita GDP of $41,127 was far lower than the US per capita GDP of $54,307. GDP growth was also slower than in other states, increasing just 0.7% in 2014. Alabama's housing market remains lackluster, with housing prices rising just 1.8% between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015.

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Any good parent wants their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults. 

And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success.

Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.

Here's what parents of successful kids have in common:

SEE ALSO: The best music to listen to for optimal productivity, according to science

1. They teach their kids social skills.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.

The 20-year study showed that socially competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by age 25 than those with limited social skills.

Those with limited social skills also had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.

"This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.

"From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted."

2. They have high expectations.

Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment. 

"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets,"he said in a statement.

The finding came out in standardized tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.

This falls in line with another psych finding: the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy." 

In the case of kids, they live up to their parents' expectations.

3. The moms work.

According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money — 23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

"Role modeling is a way of signaling what's appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe," the study's lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

"There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother,"she told Working Knowledge.

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In the world of cosplaying, Yaya Han is one of a kind. 

Cosplaying is the practice of designing and wearing costumes, typically based on characters from comic books, anime, and television shows. Conventions are held all over the world each year where cosplay enthusiasts come together to celebrate their craft. 

Han's costumes are legendary. She's become a massively popular name in the cosplay world, and even has a comic book written about her. 

Her Instagram account is a great way to get a sneak a peak into Han's colorful and creative world, and to get a look at what it takes to be one of the best cosplayers in the world. She has hundreds of thousands of loyal followers.

Check out 21 photos of the most famous cosplayer on Instagram.

Meet Yaya Han, the internet's most famous cosplayer.

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Yaya Han started cosplaying in 1999 after she attended her first anime convention. Sixteen years later, she's known around the world for her incredible costume creations.

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Source

While the convention was Han's first experience with cosplay, she'd been longtime fan of anime and manga, Han told Nerd Bastards.

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The global economy has a whole lot riding on Jamie Dimon. 

JPMorgan tops a number of global bank rankings in terms of how interconnected it is with other banks, how difficult it would be to replicate or replace, and how complex its business is, according to a study released Tuesday August 4 by the Office of Financial Research. 

Business Insider breaks down the various ways in which JPMorgan and Dimon matter so much to the global economy using a number of the charts from the Office of Financial Research report.

It's not clear that Dimon actually wants the distinction. The bank said at its investor day in February that it is taking "immediate action" to keep a lid on its size and complexity, and it has also stressed in filings that it could be wound down without the need for a bailout.

The bank said in a July filing to The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: "The Firm believes that recovery planning is an important tool to avoid failure, but that if needed, our resolution plan would effectively resolve the Firm within a reasonable timeframe, without systemic disruption and without exposing taxpayers to the risk of loss."

A spokesman for JPMorgan declined to comment. 

JPMorgan tops U.S. banks for systemic importance

The Office of Financial Research put JPMorgan at the top of the list for U.S. banks' systemic importance, using Basel methodology. 

JPMorgan's complexity makes it a key cog in the global financial system as well

JPMorgan is also the most complex bank in the world, ranking ahead of European banks Barclays, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. 

JPMorgan is the most interconnected bank in the world, followed closely by Citi.

JPMorgan is also the most interconnected bank in the world, according to the Office of Financial Research report, narrowly ahead of Citigroup and HSBC. 

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When you’re running a hyper-growth startup, it’s likely you’re short on sleep, working late hours.

But you're not alone: Even some of the world’s most successful leaders seem to function on just 4 to 5 hours of sleep.

So how do they it?

A bunch of people in the startup community dropped their two cents on Quora.

SEE ALSO: Salesforce's most successful salesman made tons of money by following this secret playbook

1. Reduce TV

"First, reduce tv.  You sleep much better, and do much more work, when you don't watch much tv.  Your brain is actually less active watching tv than when it's sleeping."— Alexandra Damsker

"It's about the environment.  Shut off the TV, turn off the lights, draw the shades. The room you sleep in should be as dark as possible."— Michael Lorenzen

2. Take power naps

"My coping mechanisms have included...short (<30 min) naps after lunch when I can fit them in."— Patrick Bosworth

"I happen to know one of these entrepreneurs and though it is true he goes to sleep late at night and wakes up between 4 and 6 am every morning, later in the afternoon he will always take a nap. The problem is if you miss that nap (even if it only is 20 minutes) it will put you off for the rest of the day, and you won't be able to perform at your best."— Ricardo Costa Reis

3. Eat less carbs

"I'd also recommend trying low carbs (<30g/day) for a week or two, it has other health benefits like losing a few pounds and not getting sleepy during the day and curing chronic heartburn etc. Try it, what do you really have to lose?"— Barry Shein

"Low-Carb During The Week: I'm not against carbohydrates. On weekends I take them down like its my last meal. However, I find when I cut out carbs like rice, wheat and potatoes, during the week, I feel much more energized throughout the day. I hardly ever feel tired in the afternoon. I feel much better on 5 hours of sleep with no carbs than 7 with them. Nothing makes me more tired than pasta or rice with my lunch."— Ryan Burgio

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You’ve probably seen 28-year-old Tara Kulakov’s lifehack videos, but you probably don't know exactly who he is. 

You're not alone! For someone with over 400 videos that have been viewed nearly 779 million times, very little is known about Kulakov. He has never given an interview and aside from two old Q&A videos, he rarely answers his fans’ questions.

But he is one of the most popular lifehackers on YouTube, so popular that he was able to ditch his job at Wal-Mart to make videos fulltime.

Though Kulakov declined our request for an interview, here's what we do know: Kulakov moved to Asheville, North Carolina in the early aughts after coming from Russia [hometown unknown] as a former professional swimmer, according to him. Kulakov came to America for — in his words— money, girls, and a better life.

He started on YouTube back in 2009 under the username origami768, where he gave origami tutorials. He also started another channel called SlowMoLaboratory that never quite took off.

Then in 2012, Kulakov — who was working at Wal-Mart at the time — started his Crazy Russian Hacker YouTube account.

Kulakov’s YouTube videos typically start with rapid-fire sound effects as a huge red star pops up on screen with a sickle and hammer. Overlaid are the words, in big block letters, “CRAZY RUSSIAN HACKER.”

“What’s up everybody?” Kulakov asks at the start of every video. “Welcome to my laboratory, where safety is [the] #1 priority. Boom!”

Kulakov stands at a shocking 6’7’’ and stares into the camera before putting on his tinted safety goggles. They look like sunglasses, making him in turn resemble some sort of cool, villainous super scientist.

But Kulakov is anything but a villain. His offbeat and good-natured humor is sometimes lost in the thickness of his Russian accent, but even so, Kulakov is immediately endearing. It’s no secret watching him why he became such an internet success.

“I got [a] camera, a basic cord, [and] I start[ed] talking, like ‘What’s up everybody welcome back, today we’re going to walk on eggs,’” he said of his first ever video. “And so I walked on eggs and they didn’t break and that was my first video and that’s how I started making videos, I think.”

Thanks to viral hits like “Homemade Light Bulb — Zombie Survival Tips” and “You’ve Been Eating Chicken Wings Wrong Every Time,” Kulakov started to amass a huge following.

Some of the commenters loved his personality and accent while others came for the science and explosions. There were even a few truth sayers that insisted that Kulakov wasn’t even Russian and that his accent was fake.

Some conspiracy-theorist commenters even claimed that Taras Kulakov wasn’t his real name at all, but instead it was Kyle Myers. Even today, comments pop up on the Crazy Russian Hacker videos wondering whether or not Kulakov is really Russian.

“Some people still think I’m not Russian,” he said to his fans in a Q&A from 2012. “And I don’t know why. Tell me why people think I’m fake Russian [in the comments]. Why would I be faking? Anyways.”

By 2014, Kulakov had one million YouTube subscribers. His survivalist and food hacks videos were also making headlines on The Huffington Post, Popular Mechanics, and Business Insider. He started making money through the YouTube partnership program, which allows creators to profit from running paid ads on their videos.

Today, Kulakov has over 5 million subscribers. His videos, like “10 Hanger Life Hacks” and “Homemade Dry Ace,” now frequently get over 1 million views. His most watched video of all time is “What Will Happen If You Boil Coke?” which has over 24 million views. (Spoiler: it looks like tar.)

“A lot of things I know before and a lot of things I have to search them on [the] internet and then put my soul into it, make them even better than what I find and make my own ideas,” he explained about his process. “I only choose the awesome ones.”

Kulakov is now so successful that there are fan Twitter accounts and fan art dedicated to the YouTube sensation. All the comments on Kulakov’s Instagram — which prominently features his beautiful white husky, Luke — are all idolizing the YouTube star.

His personal life has also changed as well. Back in 2012 when he launched his page, Kulakov said he was single and working at Wal-Mart. Now, if his Instagram account is to believed, Kulakov is engaged and he told fans he no longer has to work. Though it’s unknown how much money he makes from his channel, successful YouTubers can easily make over $100,000 a year and as much as $8 million.

“People just like my videos and they say I’m awesome,” he said way back in his 2012 Q&A.“They love my accent, you know.”

You know.

Join the conversation about this story »

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Tonight, Jon Stewart will host his final episode of "The Daily Show." He's been at the show's helm for 16 years, from the end of the Clinton years to the close of the Obama era.

In that time, he's established himself as a national icon, taking to the air every night at 11 p.m. to, as New Yorker editor David Remnick put it, "expose our civic bizarreries." 

In honor of the end of his Emmy-winning tenure — though not, he reminds us, his actual end ("Guys, let me make something clear," he reminded his audience at a recent taping, The Week reports. "I'm not dying.") — we looked back on the incredible and winding career of the legendary comedian.

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Jonathan Stewart Leibowitz was born in 1962 in New York City. His mother, Marian, was a teacher who later became an educational consultant. His father, Don, was a physicist. (His older brother, Larry, was 2 at the time, and went on to work on Wall Street, and is the former COO of NYSE Euronext.)

Sources: The New Yorker, Moment

The Leibowitzes moved to a middle-class neighborhood in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, where Stewart grew up. His was one of the few Jewish families in town, and he was often teased as a kid, according to the New Yorker's Tad Friend. "He recalls being called 'Leibotits' and 'Leibosh--s,' and getting punched out at the bus stop when he was in the seventh grade."

Source: The New Yorker

When Stewart was 12, his parents divorced. According to The New Yorker, he was "deeply shaken by the breakup, and by his subsequent failure to find common ground with his father." In the 2002 profile, Stewart told Friend that his father had never seen him perform.

Source: The New Yorker

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There's little question at this point that Apple is working on building a streaming TV service.

The company is known for taking products with frustrating and unfriendly user experiences — for many Americans, cable and satellite TV service would definitely fall into this category — and creating beautifully designed products and services that appeal to millions of people.

If Apple were to come out with a streaming TV service, it could have broad implications across the TV industry. As soon it's released, millions of people will be able to choose another company to pay for their TV. The competition may force pay TV companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and DirecTV, which traditionally haven't had much competition, to offer smaller, more flexible packages, improve customer services, and perhaps even lower fees and prices.

Apple hasn't said anything publicly about a TV service, but there are plenty of rumors and leaks about what it could look like.

Check out everything we think we know about Apple's rumored TV service.

It will be a smaller "bundle" of channels.

Don't expect Apple's TV service to have hundreds of channels like a typical cable or satellite package. The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the service will have around 25 channels, including ESPN and FX.

It will likely include CBS.

Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, told Re/Code's Kara Swisher in May that he recently had met with Apple vice president Eddy Cue to talk about the new TV service. Moonves said CBS will "probably" be a part of it.

It could be cheaper than a traditional cable package.

Brian X. Chen of the New York Times reported in March that the service could cost somewhere around $20 or $30 per month. Customers would still have to pay for broadband service, which would likely be from a cable company, however.

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QSR Magazine recently released its annual QSR 50 report of the top brands in the quick service and fast casual industries.

The chains are ranked by systemwide sales in the United States in 2014. 

Check out the companies that raked in the most cash last year.

SEE ALSO: The top 50 franchises in the world

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20. Papa John's

2014 U.S. systemwide sales: $2.7 billion

Why it's hot: Despite rising food prices last year, Papa John's managed to stay on top. The brand partnered with influential celebrities and athletes, like Peyton Manning, which contributed to its success. 

19. Jack in the Box

2014 U.S. systemwide sales: $3.2 billion

Why it's hot: The chain is known for selling breakfast all-day, which many other fast food chains are not able to do. Last year, Jack in the Box increased sales by capitalizing on late-night snackers.

18. Arby's

2014 U.S. systemwide sales: $3.2 billion

Why it's hot: Arby's achieves its success by keeping its menu consistent and investing in heavier customer service training. "We stepped back and made a conscious decision to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace," the company's CEO, Paul Brown, told Business Insider.

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Sugar! Our taste buds might love it but society has taught us to hate it by feeding our minds with ideas that sugar is addictive, toxic, and disease-inducing.

Fortunately for anyone with a sweet tooth, that's not true.

Several recent studies debunk the myth that sugar is uniformly bad for us. And in a recent book, called "The Gluten Lie," James Madison University professor Alan Levinovitz tells us why.

With help from the studies that Levinovitz cites as well as a few other expert sources, we've debunked nine sugar "facts." Here they are:

CHECK OUT: Here's the real reason your gluten-free diet might be making you feel better

SEE ALSO: A long-held theory about the best way to lose weight and eat healthy is bogus

Sugar causes hyperactivity in children.

If your kids are going crazy with hyperactivity, you can't blame the sugar. Numerous scientific studies have attempted and failed to find any evidence that supports this off-the-wall notion.

Levinovitz traces the myth back to 1974, when Dr. William Crook wrote a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which the academy later published, stating "Only in the past three years have I become aware that sugar ... is a leading cause of hyperactivity."

A letter does not include the rigorous scientific research that a paper does, and according to the National Institute of Mental Health: "The idea that refined sugar causes ADHD or makes symptoms worse is popular, but more research discounts this theory than supports it."

Natural sugar is better for you than processed sugar.

Some nature gurus might have you believe that a granola bar made with natural honey instead of high-fructose corn syrup is better for you. They would be wrong.

"Scientists would be surprised to hear about the 'clear superiority' of honey, since there is a near unanimous consensus that the biological effect of high-fructose corn syrup are essentially the same as those of honey," Levinovitz writes.

The sugar in natural products like fruit and synthetic products like candy is the same. The problem is that candy, and other related products, usually have more sugar per serving, which means more calories. That's the difference you should be watching out for and not some hyped-up myth that high-fructose corn syrup is an evil, toxic poison.

Children who drink soda are at a greater risk of becoming obese.

In "Fed Up," the widely popular film that addresses some of the supposed causes of America's obesity epidemic, you hear the alarming statistic that "One soda a day increases a child's chance of obesity by 60%."

Even the authors of the study this statistic comes from know that their findings "cannot prove causality," they write in their 2001 paper. (But that's not what the "Fed Up" sugar-shaming producers would want you to think.)

Yes, drinking too much calorie-loaded soda is likely unhealthy, but it's not the sole factor driving the child obesity epidemic in America.

The CDC advises parents to do what they can to protect against obesity by encouraging healthy lifestyle habits that include healthy eating and exercise, both of which will likely do more for a child's waistline than trying to completely cut sugar.

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If you want to be an executive, billionaire, or US president, it's a good idea to go to Harvard Business School.

Harvard offered the world's first master's in business administration program, and the Harvard MBA has since been a hallmark of the elite, with George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Michael Bloomberg all earning the degree.

We sifted through HBS's sterling history to find the most powerful, prominent, and financially successful grads who came out of Cambridge.

NOW READ: The 25 most successful Stanford Business School graduates

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Sheryl Sandberg is largely credited with making Facebook profitable. The 1995 HBS alum initiated a global conversation about women and work with her bestselling book "Lean In."

Source: Forbes

Stephen R. Covey, class of 1957, became tremendously influential after publishing his bestselling book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People."

Source:Amazon

After earning his MBA in 1942, Philip Caldwell took over as the first non-Ford to run Ford Motor Company, where he led one of the biggest turnarounds in American business history.

Source: Bloomberg

Activist investor Bill Ackman has made the food and beverage multinational Mondelez International his newest target.

The hedge fund manager is likely to push for the company to cut costs or sell itself to a rival, according to The Wall Street Journal.  

One potential suitor is the recently-merged Kraft Heinz company — now the fifth-largest food company in the world.

The merger of Kraft and Heinz was orchestrated by 3G Capital, which is helmed by Brazilian billionaire Jorge Lemann, and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

Ackman himself is an investor in 3G's funds.

The private-equity firm has wasted little time in shaking up the upper ranks of the newly-combined company, and has a reputation for savage cost-cutting.

Lemann, a Swiss-Brazilian, has gone from journalist to national tennis champion to banker and now billionaire investor. Buffett likes to call him, "Georgie Paolo."

"Money is simply a way of measuring if the business is going well or not, but money in and of itself doesn't fascinate me," Lemann said in January 2008, according to an interview published in HSM Management magazine.

Shows you that he's just in it for the love of the game.

Lemann was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1939. His father was a Swiss businessman who immigrated to Brazil in the 1920s.

He left Brazil to attend Harvard, earning his bachelor's degree in economics in 1961. Lemann still has a great relationship with Harvard, helping Brazilian students study there and setting up scholarships.

After Harvard, Lemann's life was a mixed bag. He trained at Credit Suisse for a while and worked as a journalist at Brazil's third-oldest paper, Jornal do Brasil.

Sculpture has the power to leave spectators in a state of sheer amazement. But standing in the presence of a "supersize" statue can actually take your breath away. 

Taking up to 20 years to build and millions of dollars to create, these 16 enormous creations do just that. They'll stand for centuries as icons of history and culture for visitors to enjoy. From the world's largest reclining Buddha to a 105 foot tall sculpture of Mao Zedong, keep scrolling for a trip around the world in massive statues.  

SEE ALSO: Glorious award-winning National Geographic photos will make you want to travel the world

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The Christ the Redeemer statue, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, scales more than 2,000 feet above the city to offer visitors stunning views. The 100 foot tall statue’s awe-inspiring scale and design resulted in its recognition as one of the seven new wonders of the world.

Source: Daily Mail

At 380 feet tall, Myanmar’s Laykyun Sekkya Buddha, built on top of Po Kaung Hills, is the second tallest statue in the world. At its foot is the "Monywa Buddha"— the largest reclining Buddha in the world.

Source: Matador Network

This statue, perched in China's Hunan Province, depicts Chairman Mao Zedong at the age of 32. The work is said to have cost as much as $35 million to build.

Source: Reuters, Matador Network

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"Minecraft" is the hottest PC game in the world. It's like digital LEGO. Kids love it. Grown ups love it. You can play to survive, overcome challenges, or – my personal favorite – build ridiculously creative things. Some players stick within the bounds of the original game. Others color outside the lines with mods, or fan-made changes to the game itself. Here are eight astonishing examples of that creativity, from players of all kinds.

"Project Wasteland" seeks to recreate the look and feel of "Fallout."

"Fallout" is one of the most popular open-world series around. It's set in a post-apocalyptic America. Radiation spoils the landscape and bottlecaps are currency. The game world is enormous. Modder and builder Dvnt set out to create the landscape and gameplay of the series within "Minecraft"– complete with all-new creatures, a "Pip Boy" electronic device straight out of the game, and a heads-up display.

You can learn more about the ongoing project, known as "Project Wasteland,"here.

"Atropos" is a giant, gorgeous turtle...city...thing.

It's hard to say what "Atropos" is. It's got buildings, caverns, giant mushrooms, smokestacks – all slotted into the intricate body of a giant turtle. The name comes from one of the three ancient Greek goddesses of fate.

The beauty of this build is in the seamless integration of macro and micro. Here are some screenshots from within the great chelonian.

You can download "Atropos" and find out more about the project here.

This hammerhead shark sky battleship is straight out of an unwritten sci-fi movie.

"Atropos" isn't the only stunning "Minecraft" uber-megafauna around. This "Redeemer-Class Gunship" is a feat of over-the-top biomimetic design​. Creator Rossky writes, "Building this 2,045,747 blocks project took 43 days with about 2-6 hours of building every day. "

If only we had an alien super-guppy invasion to give us a reason to build one of these in real life.

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