Category Archives: Wellness Live

American diets got briefly healthier, more diverse during COVID-19 pandemic, study finds

Posted on by
Reply

American diets may have gotten healthier and more diverse in the months following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers.

The study — published in PLOS ONE — found that as states responded to the pandemic with school closures and other lockdown measures, citizens’ diet quality improved by up to 8.5% and food diversity improved by up to 2.6%.

Co-author Edward Jaenicke, professor of agricultural economics in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said the findings provide a snapshot of what Americans’ diet and eating habits might look like in the nearly complete absence of restaurant and cafeteria eating.

“When dine-in restaurants closed, our diets got a little more diverse and a little healthier,” Jaenicke said. “One post-pandemic lesson is that we now have some evidence that any future shifts away from restaurant expenditures, even those not caused by the pandemic, could improve Americans’ food diversity and healthfulness.”

Prior to the pandemic, the researchers said, the average U.S. diet was considered generally unhealthy. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, eating patterns in the U.S. have remained far below the guidelines’ recommendations, with only slight improvements in the population’s average Healthy Eating Index score between 2005 and 2016.

Also, before the pandemic, the research team was in the midst of a grant-funded project that asked how people would feed themselves after a giant global catastrophe, such as an asteroid strike or nuclear war. In particular, Jaenicke’s team was tasked with investigating how consumers and food retailers might behave during such a disaster.

“At first, the most impactful events we could study using actual, real-world data were hurricanes and other natural disasters,” Jaenicke said. “But then, along came the COVID-19 pandemic, and we realized that this event was an opportunity to study the closest thing we had to a true global catastrophe.”

For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the NielsenIQ Homescan Consumer Panel on grocery purchases, which includes 41,570 nationally representative U.S. households. Data consisted of the quantity and price paid for every universal product code each family purchased during the study period.

Data was gathered from both before the pandemic hit and after the pandemic led to schools, restaurants and other establishments temporarily closing. Because states did not respond to the pandemic simultaneously, the researchers designated each household’s post-pandemic period as the weeks following the date that their county of residence closed schools in 2020.

Jaenicke noted that this allowed the team to show a true causal effect of the pandemic school closures, which generally occurred around the same time that restaurants and other eateries also closed.

“To establish causality, an individual household’s pre- and post-pandemic food purchases were first compared to the same household’s food purchases from one year earlier,” Jaenicke said. “This way, we controlled for the food-purchasing habits, preferences and idiosyncrasies of individual households.”

The researchers found that in the two to three months following pandemic-based school closures — spanning March to June 2020, depending on the specific U.S. state — there were modest increases in Americans’ food diversity, defined as how many different categories of food a person eats over a period of time.

They also found larger, temporary increases in diet quality, meaning the foods purchased were healthier. This was measured by how closely a household’s purchases adhered to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Thrifty Food Plan, which was designed to meet the requirements of the recommended healthy diet according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

These patterns were found across households with many different demographics; however, those households with young children, lower incomes and without a car exhibited smaller increases in these measures.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, dine-in restaurants closed, schools and school cafeterias closed, and many supermarket shelves were empty,” Jaenicke said. “Since about 50% of Americans’ food dollars are spent on ‘away from home’ food from restaurants and cafeterias, the pandemic was a major shock to the food system.”

The researchers said there are several possible explanations for these findings. First, because other studies have found that food from restaurants is often less healthy than food made at home, the dramatic decrease of meals eaten at and purchased from restaurants during the pandemic could have contributed to an increase of food diversity and healthfulness at home.

Second, they said it was possible that a global pandemic triggered some consumers to become more health conscious and contributed to them buying healthier, more diverse groceries. Third, because the pandemic caused widespread disruptions to the supply chain, it’s possible that when familiar products were sold out, consumers shifted to newer ones that led to increased diversity and healthfulness.

Finally, school and business closures may have led to many households having more time to cook and prepare foods than they had before, while others — like those with small children — may have had less free time than pre-pandemic.

Jaenicke said that in the future, additional studies could continue to explore how different disasters affect purchasing and eating habits.

Douglas Wrenn, associate professor of environmental and resource economics at Penn State, and Daniel Simandjuntak, research associate at Newcastle University, were also co-authors on the study.

Open Philanthropy helped support this research.

Share Button

Bases Loaded Reflections + Videos Now Available

Posted on by

I’m happy to report that last week’s Bases Loaded event on Life Balance went exceedingly well. I’m really delighted with how it turned out – mentally and emotionally it was a very heart-opening and connected experience. If you haven’t gone through it yet, I strongly encourage you to get the recordings and watch them this week. It’s only $42 for all four days’ worth – more than 9 hours total. Feel free to watch it at double speed if you like.

I felt very tuned in and enthusiastic all throughout the event. Participation was fabulous, and there were some pretty moving moments too, especially near the end of Day 2.

I’ve been taking a different approach to my work this year – really going much further in the direction of vibrational alignment, which is such a great way to create breakthroughs when nothing else works. Sometimes we reach the point in life where the only practical way to advance is to permanently and meaningfully boost our default vibes and then keep them there. No going back to the old vibes.

Bases Loaded takes this vibrational approach and applies it to the challenge of creating a beautifully balanced and harmonious life. I’ve already been making significant changes to my life since working at this level. I love how simple principles and a focus on the right vibes can open a window to new levels of logical thinking too.

The four bases in Bases Loaded are the key vibes to use for creating balance and harmony in any and all areas of life. Instead of trying to juggle items based on scheduling alone – which doesn’t actually create balance – this approach relies on aligning each area of life as well as each goal, project, and task with vibes that naturally create harmony and balance.

Consider the vibes you’ve used to make many of the decisions in your life already and how those decisions are still impacting you today. What vibes led you to choose your current work, business path, or school, for instance? What vibes did you follow into your current relationship situation? Did you make various choices based on worry, anxiety, pressure, concern, ambition, security, neediness, clinginess, love, connection, oneness, peace, contribution, or something else?

There’s no escaping vibrational decisions. You naturally make such decisions all the time, every single day. Whenever you decide what to wear or what to eat, you’re making vibrational choices. Do you make those decisions harmoniously and with a similar set of vibes each time? Most likely not.

Do you know what the very best harmonizing vibes are? They are Courage, Love, Trust, and Joy. You really just need those four because they’re very robust and very cooperative with each other. To fully align with any one of them is really to invite all four into your life. The Bases Loaded experience guides you deeply through all four, focusing on one core vibe per day. Then we go through examples and stories of how to apply them. And there’s lots of sharing from people who were on the live calls each day. Hearing from others and witnessing their shifts is a big part of the overall experience. It invites you to start making similar shifts in your decision-making too. Get your decisions aligned with the most harmonious vibrational roots. Stabilize your decision-making vibes, and you’ll stabilize your decisions and their unfolding ripples. As you see when you apply these ideas, it’s lovely to experience the ripples of decisions rooted in Courage, Love, Trust, and Joy.

Look at the items on your to-do list for today, and ask yourself: What vibes led to each item appearing on my list? You’ll probably notice that your to-dos aren’t all very well-aligned with these harmonizing vibes. Some items may be on your list due to feelings of anxiety or pressure. Others may have gotten onto your list because they seem creative. And still others may have a tedious “I should do this” feeling to them. Notice how these different vibes impact your productivity and flow. You can also review bigger projects or goals if you’d like. Remember that every decision is a vibrational one. Do this simple check right now and see what you notice.

One reason people struggle with consistency is that they make decisions from different vibrational roots. Then as their vibes shifts, they’re constantly remaking or unmaking those same decisions. That gets messy very quickly.

Your vibes control your state of mind, and your state of mind controls what kinds of thoughts you’ll access. Different vibes lead to different thoughts, including different logic running through your mind. Any logic depends on priorities. Logic alone cannot set priorities. Priorities are set for vibrational (or emotional) reasons. You have to care about something to make it a priority, and there’s no logical mandate to care about anything, not even your survival. So every priority you set in life is really a vibrational decision. If your vibes shift often and then you try to make decisions with different vibes, you’ll surely experience inconsistency. You’ll have a hard time sticking to your past choices. Your life will become chaotically unbalanced and disharmonious.

You may think that too much chaos or stagnation is dragging down your vibes. But the real issue is that you’re not aligning with the vibes you want when making decisions. To create harmonious results, it’s necessary to keep synching with harmonious vibes. I make this super easy for you by giving you the best vibes to sync to in order to create balance and harmony (right here in this post).

There’s a way to make strong choices and have them stick – no waffling afterwards. That’s a vibrational alignment approach, and Bases Loaded is a powerful invitation to practice and apply this. Ostensibly it’s about life balance, but truly it’s about so much more. These vibes are universals that you can apply again and again.

Got a work challenge that’s unbalancing your team dynamics? Use these harmonizing vibes to get everyone on the same page. Got a health or relationship issue popping up? Use these harmonizing vibes to clarify the path forward.

I’ve been working in the self-development field for about 20 years now. I haven’t wavered in that commitment. I haven’t wanted to quit. Same goes for committing to Conscious Growth Club, which is now flowing along beautifully in its 8th year together. My relationship with Rachelle is still going strong, now in our 15th year together. I don’t normally struggle with making big decisions and long-term commitments because I learned the importance of synching to intelligence-raising vibes when making such decisions. I know that if my vibes are inconsistent, I can never really trust my decisions, and I can be sure that my future self will eventually think differently. But I can also know that these four harmonizing vibes will always matter to me. I can trust them because they’re timeless, and synching to timeless vibes is the real key to consistency. You can’t get consistency from what’s temporary and unstable.

Bases Loaded is my ultimate expression of how to make such commitments. If you can’t commit yourself to a certain direction and stick with it year after year, you can’t really benefit from the delights of such long-term investments. You’ll constantly swirl around at ground level instead of really getting somewhere. You’ll often feel like you’re starting from scratch yet again.

The truth is that you can have the best of both worlds here. I love being a beginner too and exploring in new directions. I always want to keep learning and growing. But I also love having some forever projects and directions where I feel solidly committed. It’s so gratifying to be able to really invest long-term and accumulate all the benefits of past lessons. These harmonizing vibes don’t just stabilize and enhance my long-term commitments – they also show me which new directions are truly strong matches for me. When I work with these vibes, I often feel that I’m being lovingly guided by a much greater intelligence. It’s like I’m harmonizing with universal wisdom that’s always broadcasting. I just have to keep tuning in to it.

I’ve priced Bases Loaded ridiculously low on purpose. I want it to be accessible to lots and lots of people. Now that it’s over, it really does feel like a beautiful diamond – a baseball diamond even – to add to this ever-growing body of work. I know I’ll always have fond memories of the experience. The weekend afterwards I was all aglow from so much immersion in these vibes, and Rachelle and I enjoyed a lovely date together on Saturday.

Bases Loaded is very much a vibrational experience for you as you go through it. There’s a reason I did it live on video instead of just writing up a series of text posts. It’s important to hear it and feel it. You’ll notice that my energy is very high and lively throughout. I did my very best to embody and demonstrate the vibes as we went. I didn’t just want to talk about them. I wanted you to see and sense what it feels like when you invite more Courage, Love, Trust, and Joy into your everyday life. Feeling joyful, vibrant, and enthusiastic each day is normal for me, but the flip side is that it’s crucial to keep leaning in directions that require Courage and Trust to maintain this. There is no sustainable Joy or Love without Courage and Trust. Have you figured that out yet?

People so often overlook the harmonizing power of Trust, for instance. They try to be happy without it, thinking maybe it’s not essential, and that approach fails again and again. Do you have high-Trust relationships with the people you engage with each day? Do you keep seeking to build stronger Trust with those people? Do you approach new connections and potential relationships on the basis of deliberately seeking to build Trust? Do you set goals and make decisions based on deepening and strengthening your already powerful Trust in life? Do you keep placing bigger bets in the direction of Trust? We cover Trust in great depth on Day 4 of Bases Loaded, and you’ll see how powerfully and intelligently it connects with Courage, Love, and Joy as well.

Self-Trust is very powerful too. Do you trust yourself to make wise choices? Do you trust in your ability to keep learning and growing? Do you trust that investing in your self-development really pays off over time? I obviously do. Trusting in this direction rescued me from a lot of problems I encountered (and created) when I was younger. Continuing to build stronger Trust in myself, in my intuition, in life, and in the people I connect with daily is delightful. It takes time to get used to it, especially if you need to release low-Trust vibes, people, and situations, but then it feels so natural. High-Trust relationships and communities are very accessible if we make Trust-aligned decisions.

Bases Loaded is a very aspirational experience too. It will likely invite you to reach well beyond your current circumstances. As I shared during the Day 1 call, these harmonizing vibes are demanding. As you invite them in, they will push out whatever doesn’t align with them. A shedding process is inevitably part of the re-alignment process. That takes Courage. It takes Courage just to sign up and press play because you don’t know how working with these vibes will affect you till you’re in the midst of them.

What I can say is that you can trust these vibes. They’re challenging indeed, but they’re on your side 100%. If this invitation is showing up in your life now, that’s surely for good reason. It means you’re ready to start shifting away from struggle, stuckness, or stagnation and into a whole new experience of growth. But it won’t be the same kind of growth experience you’ve had before. This vibes are here to invite you into an uplifting phase of fresh new growth.

When you’re ready.

Share Button

NASA’s Webb investigates eternal sunrises, sunsets on distant world

Posted on by
Reply

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have finally confirmed what models have previously predicted: An exoplanet has differences between its eternal morning and eternal evening atmosphere. WASP-39 b, a giant planet with a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter, but similar mass to Saturn that orbits a star about 700 light-years away from Earth, is tidally locked to its parent star. This means it has a constant dayside and a constant nightside — one side of the planet is always exposed to its star, while the other is always shrouded in darkness.

Using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), astronomers confirmed a temperature difference between the eternal morning and eternal evening on WASP-39 b, with the evening appearing hotter by roughly 300 Fahrenheit degrees (about 200 Celsius degrees). They also found evidence for different cloud cover, with the forever morning portion of the planet being likely cloudier than the evening.

Astronomers analyzed the 2- to 5-micron transmission spectrum of WASP-39 b, a technique that studies the exoplanet’s terminator, the boundary that separates the planet’s dayside and nightside. A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves in front of the star, to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. When making that comparison, researchers can get information about the temperature, composition, and other properties of the planet’s atmosphere.

“WASP-39 b has become a sort of benchmark planet in studying the atmosphere of exoplanets with Webb,” said Néstor Espinoza, an exoplanet researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute and lead author on the study. “It has an inflated, puffy atmosphere, so the signal coming from starlight filtered through the planet’s atmosphere is quite strong.”

Previously published Webb spectra of WASP-39b’s atmosphere, which revealed the presence of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, water vapor, and sodium, represent the entire day/night boundary — there was no detailed attempt to differentiate between one side and the other.

Now, the new analysis builds two different spectra from the terminator region, essentially splitting the day/night boundary into two semicircles, one from the evening, and the other from the morning. Data reveals the evening as significantly hotter, a searing 1,450 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius), and the morning a relatively cooler 1,150 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius).

“It’s really stunning that we are able to parse this small difference out, and it’s only possible due Webb’s sensitivity across near-infrared wavelengths and its extremely stable photometric sensors,” said Espinoza. “Any tiny movement in the instrument or with the observatory while collecting data would have severely limited our ability to make this detection. It must be extraordinarily precise, and Webb is just that.”

Extensive modeling of the data obtained also allows researchers to investigate the structure of WASP-39 b’s atmosphere, the cloud cover, and why the evening is hotter. While future work by the team will study how the cloud cover may affect temperature, and vice versa, astronomers confirmed gas circulation around the planet as the main culprit of the temperature difference on WASP-39 b.

On a highly irradiated exoplanet like WASP-39 b that orbits relatively close to its star, researchers generally expect the gas to be moving as the planet rotates around its star: Hotter gas from the dayside should move through the evening to the nightside via a powerful equatorial jet stream. Since the temperature difference is so extreme, the air pressure difference would also be significant, which in turn would cause high wind speeds.

Using General Circulation Models, 3-dimensional models similar to the ones used to predict weather patterns on Earth, researchers found that on WASP-39 b the prevailing winds are likely moving from the night side across the morning terminator, around the dayside, across the evening terminator and then around the nightside. As a result, the morning side of the terminator is cooler than the evening side. In other words, the morning side gets slammed with winds of air that have been cooled on the nightside, while the evening is hit by winds of air heated on the dayside. Research suggests the wind speeds on WASP-39 b can reach thousands of miles an hour!

“This analysis is also particularly interesting because you’re getting 3D information on the planet that you weren’t getting before,” added Espinoza. “Because we can tell that the evening edge is hotter, that means it’s a little puffier. So, theoretically, there is a small swell at the terminator approaching the nightside of the planet.”

The team’s results have been published in Nature.

The researchers will now look to use the same method of analysis to study atmospheric differences of other tidally locked hot Jupiters, as part of Webb Cycle 2 General Observers Program 3969.

WASP-39 b was among the first targets analyzed by Webb as it began regular science operations in 2022. The data in this study was collected under Early Release Science program 1366, designed to help scientists quickly learn how to use the telescope’s instruments and realize its full science potential.

Share Button

Judge Dismisses Trump’s Classified Documents Indictment

Posted on by
Reply

A federal judge has dismissed former US President Donald Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case, finding that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.

Judge Aileen Cannon issued her ruling on Monday.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Share Button

Why Is The New Government Facing Backlash From Its Own MPs Over Puberty Blockers?

Posted on by
Reply

Just ten days after being elected, the government is already facing some internal turmoil over its stance on trans rights – specifically, over its restrictions on puberty blockers.

Here’s why Labour MPs are calling out the health department, why it matters, and how health secretary Wes Streeting has responded.

What has happened?

Streeting has decided to extend a ban – first implemented by the Conservatives – on puberty blockers prescribed to children for gender-related issues.

Puberty blockers are used to help children who start puberty very early.

And, for the last 30 years, they have also been used for those under 18 who are unsure of their gender identity and want to delay reaching sexual maturity.

It prevents physical signs of puberty appearing, like facial hair.

But, then-health secretary Victoria Atkins announced using puberty blockers for young people experiencing gender-related problems would be banned in both in the NHS and the private sector.

She announced the news in May, just before the dissolution of parliament – the emergency ban was implemented in England, Wales and Scotland.

That decision is now being legally challenged in the High Court by The Good Law Project and pro-trans group, TransActual.

The campaigners say the ban did not undergo sufficient parliamentary scrutiny before it was passed, and a statutory committee was not consulted.

According to the government’s legal department in the ongoing case, the government “is minded to renew the emergency banning order with a view to converting it to a permanent ban, subject to appropriate consultation.”

Why did the Conservative government – and now its Labour successor – ban the puberty blockers?

Atkins’ decision came after the Cass review – by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass – into the NHS services for trans children and young people was published earlier this year.

The review said the evidence for the long-term safety of using puberty blockers was weak, and called for more research into its use.

Who within the Labour Party has criticised this?

Labour, which has struggled to unite the party over its stance on trans issues in the past, is now facing internal backlash over its decision to extend the controversial Tory ban.

Stella Creasy – a frontbencher under Ed Miliband – said: “Cass review recommended caution, not exclusion, for any treatment and drew attention to shortcomings of previous GIDs service.

“To those asking will always be MP who listens to demand for better research & evidence base for help for those with gender dysphoria, not abandons them.”

Backbencher Zarah Sultana lashed out at Streeting on X, saying their party’s manifesto vowed to “remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition & acceptance”.

She added: “That entails ending the Tories’ ban on puberty blockers. Young people – cis & trans – must have access to healthcare they need. I’ll always stand with the trans community.”

Fellow backbencher Nadia Whittome said: “Only a small number of young people are prescribed puberty blockers.

“Those who are often describe them as lifesaving. I know the distress the puberty blockers ban is causing them. No matter what happens in court, I will continue fighting for the government to scrap it.”

Clive Lewis, who ran in the 2020 leadership contest, wrote on X: “I’ve met young people who’ve been prescribed puberty blockers. Some told me they’d helped lift them from depression & probably saved their life. A blanket ban is wrong & not what Cass recommended. Careful, clinical provision is the way forward, not this politicisation.”

LGBT+ Labour also wrote to Streeting, saying the Cass review also called for a cut in waiting lists for trans youth and long-term staffing issues to be addressed.

It demanded “comprehensive training for NHS staff on how best to support and work sensitively with trans and questioning young people, and better address the current toxicity of public debate which is actively harmful to young people”.

The group called for Streeting to set out a timeline of a clinical trial for the puberty blockers, adding: “We hope that, under this new Labour government, progress can be made to reset the public discussion on trans rights, centring on the humanity of, and compassion for, each individual trans person.”

Campaigners protesting the ban on puberty blockers
Campaigners protesting the ban on puberty blockers

How has Streeting responded to criticism?

In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), Streeting acknowledged there’s “lots of fear and anxiety” around the decision he has made, but the “safety of children must come first”.

He argued the Cass review did not find enough evidence about puberty blockers’ long-term impact, adding: “The evidence should have been established before they were ever prescribed.”

The health secretary said the NHS is setting up a clinic trial with National Institute for Health and Care Research so the effects can be “safely monitored” to prove the evidence required.

He said puberty blockers’ use in children who start puberty much too early has been “extensively tested” and met safety requirements – but the same is yet to be said for gender dysphoria.

Streeting explained: “This is because the puberty blockers are suppressing hormone levels that are abnormally high for the age of the child.

“This is different to stopping the normal surge of hormones that occur in puberty. This affects children’s psychological and brain development.”

He added: “I am determined to improve the quality of, and access to, care for trans people.”

Share Button

Longlegs Director Clears Up The 1 Question We Still Had After Watching The Film

Posted on by
Reply

If you saw Longlegs over the weekend, the chances are you may have left the cinema with a few questions. “What did I just watch?” being one of them, and “Am I going to be able to sleep tonight?” potentially being another.

And then, of course, there’s the titular character’s name. Despite everything we do end up learning about Nicolas Cage’s Satan-worshipping serial killer, it’s never actually made clear where he got the name Longlegs from.

Well, director Osgood Perkins – the brain behind Longlegs – has cleared things up. Sort of.

Asked by Variety where Longlegs’ name came from, Oz said: “We writers just like words. We like how certain words sound and look and shape and feel.”

“Yeah, it has daddy longlegs and a creepy-crawly aspect to it,” he continued. “But it also feels ’70s to me — almost like a Led Zeppelin song or someone would have on the side of their van, something groovy like that. It feels like a vintage word that people wouldn’t toss around much today.

“It positioned the movie in a weird place. You don’t get to fully understand it. It doesn’t fully fit, which is more alluring to me and creates a curiosity that I think is important.”

Osgood Perkins
Osgood Perkins

via Associated Press

Oz also revealed that the character of Longlegs is one that he’s had in the back of his mind for some time.

“[He] was a character that had tried to make himself fit into other projects that I had worked on,” the filmmaker said. “When you’re writing all the time and generating specs and no one’s paying you or you don’t have any source material, you’re making shit up all the time. You end up with a universe of things that are swirling around, and you try to pull them out and stick them in.

“Longlegs was an entity, this shabby – is he a birthday clown? Is he a puppet master? Does he deal with stuffed animals? Is it little pianos? You start to wonder about this person who comes to your kid on their birthday and you’re in another room and you don’t know they’re interacting and that’s weird.

“He doesn’t abduct the kids because we’ve seen that 1,000 times before. He kind of talks to them. You start to be curious about that.”

Nicolas Cage at the premiere of Longlegs last week
Nicolas Cage at the premiere of Longlegs last week

via Associated Press

Oz added: “When I decided that I was going to try for a serial killer procedural that was going to be something else, I needed a bad guy. Longlegs was like, ‘I’ll do it’.

“In your drawer of ideas, one of them says, ‘Put me in, coach’. And in goes Longlegs.”

<div class="js-react-hydrator" data-component-name="YouTube" data-component-id="2756" data-component-props="{"itemType":"video","index":18,"contentIndexByType":1,"contentListType":"embed","code":"

","type":"video","meta":{"author":"NEON","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpy5dRhZd-JbZP4NsrnLt1w","cache_age":86400,"description":"Bow all the way down.\n\nLONGLEGS 7.12","options":{"_cc_load_policy":{"label":"Closed captions","value":false},"_end":{"label":"End on","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":""},"_start":{"label":"Start from","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":"1"},"click_to_play":{"label":"Hold load & play until clicked","value":false}},"provider_name":"YouTube","thumbnail_height":720,"thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FXOtkvx25gI/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_width":1280,"title":"LONGLEGS | The End Trailer | In Theaters July 12","type":"video","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXOtkvx25gI","version":"1.0"},"flags":[],"enhancements":{},"fullBleed":false,"options":{"theme":"news","device":"desktop","editionInfo":{"id":"uk","name":"U.K.","link":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk","locale":"en_GB"},"originalEdition":"uk","isMapi":false,"isAmp":false,"isVideoEntry":false,"isEntry":true,"isMt":false,"entryId":"66953589e4b0e69c89ebbac7","entryPermalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/longlegs-director-reveals-origin-character-name_uk_66953589e4b0e69c89ebbac7","entryTagsList":"ukfilm,longlegs,osgood-perkins","sectionSlug":"entertainment","deptSlug":null,"sectionRedirectUrl":null,"subcategories":"","isWide":false,"headerOverride":null,"noVideoAds":false,"disableFloat":false,"isNative":false,"commercialVideo":{"provider":"custom","site_and_category":"uk.entertainment","package":null},"isHighline":false,"vidibleConfigValues":{"cid":"60afc140cf94592c45d7390c","disabledWithMapiEntries":false,"overrides":{"all":"60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4"},"whitelisted":["56c5f12ee4b03a39c93c9439","56c6056ee4b01f2b7e1b5f35","59bfee7f9e451049f87f550b","5acccbaac269d609ef44c529","570278d2e4b070ff77b98217","57027b4be4b070ff77b98d5c","56fe95c4e4b0041c4242016b","570279cfe4b06d08e3629954","5ba9e8821c2e65639162ccf1","5bcd9904821576674bc55ced","5d076ca127f25f504327c72e","5b35266b158f855373e28256","5ebac2e8abddfb04f877dff2","60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4","60b64354b171b7444beaff4d","60d0d8e09340d7032ad0fb1a","60d0d90f9340d7032ad0fbeb","60d0d9949340d7032ad0fed3","60d0d9f99340d7032ad10113","60d0daa69340d7032ad104cf","60d0de02b627221e9d819408"],"playlists":{"default":"57bc306888d2ff1a7f6b5579","news":"56c6dbcee4b04edee8beb49c","politics":"56c6dbcee4b04edee8beb49c","entertainment":"56c6e7f2e4b0983aa64c60fc","tech":"56c6f70ae4b043c5bdcaebf9","parents":"56cc65c2e4b0239099455b42","lifestyle":"56cc66a9e4b01f81ef94e98c"},"playerUpdates":{"56c6056ee4b01f2b7e1b5f35":"60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4","56c5f12ee4b03a39c93c9439":"60d0d8e09340d7032ad0fb1a","59bfee7f9e451049f87f550b":"60d0d90f9340d7032ad0fbeb","5acccbaac269d609ef44c529":"60d0d9949340d7032ad0fed3","5bcd9904821576674bc55ced":"60d0d9f99340d7032ad10113","5d076ca127f25f504327c72e":"60d0daa69340d7032ad104cf","5ebac2e8abddfb04f877dff2":"60d0de02b627221e9d819408"}},"connatixConfigValues":{"defaultPlayer":"8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb","clickToPlayPlayer":"5a777b9b-81fe-41a6-8302-59e9953ee8a2","videoPagePlayer":"19654b65-409c-4b38-90db-80cbdea02cf4"},"topConnatixThumnbailSrc":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=","customAmpComponents":[],"ampAssetsUrl":"https://amp.assets.huffpost.com","videoTraits":null,"positionInUnitCounts":{"buzz_head":{"count":0},"buzz_body":{"count":0},"buzz_bottom":{"count":0}},"positionInSubUnitCounts":{"article_body":{"count":5},"blog_summary":{"count":0},"before_you_go_content":{"count":0}},"connatixCountsHelper":{"count":0},"buzzfeedTracking":{"context_page_id":"66953589e4b0e69c89ebbac7","context_page_type":"buzz","destination":"huffpost","mode":"desktop","page_edition":"en-uk"},"tags":[{"name":"ukfilm","slug":"ukfilm","links":{"relativeLink":"news/ukfilm","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/ukfilm","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/ukfilm"},"section":{"title":"Entertainment","slug":"entertainment"},"topic":{"title":"Film","slug":"ukfilm","overridesSectionLabel":false},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/ukfilm/"},{"name":"longlegs","slug":"longlegs","links":{"relativeLink":"news/longlegs","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/longlegs","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/longlegs"},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/longlegs/"},{"name":"osgood perkins","slug":"osgood-perkins","links":{"relativeLink":"news/osgood-perkins","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/osgood-perkins","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/osgood-perkins"},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/osgood-perkins/"}],"isLiveblogLive":null,"cetUnit":"buzz_body","bodyAds":["

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-1\", \"entry_paragraph_1\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline\", \"entry_paragraph_2\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-2\", \"entry_paragraph_3\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-infinite\", \"repeating_dynamic_display\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n"],"adCount":0},"isCollectionEmbed":false}”>

Nicolas Cage plays the title villain in Longlegs, donning elaborate prosthetics to help him get into character, with a performance that he’s revealed has a particularly personal connection for him.

He’s joined in the cast by Maika Monroe as Lee Harker, an FBI agent assigned to investigate a mysterious string of mass murders.

Longlegs is in cinemas now.

Share Button