The United States has more species of turtles and tortoises than any other country in the world, with 51 species, making it a prime target for wildlife traffickers exporting to Asia.
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At 2:13:10 · chapter starts 2:10:50
Eric Goode has spent two decades trying to save the plowshare tortoise, an animal so rare and beautiful that specimens trade for up to $100,000 on the black market and poachers target even the defaced specimens his organization tried to protect by Dremeling identifying marks into their shells.[1] He did a 60 Minutes piece with Lesley Stahl, a New Yorker article, attempted anti-poaching programs including Dremeling to reduce black market value — and still watched the tortoise go functionally extinct in Madagascar, its only native habitat. Then, right as the documentary was wrapping, the team achieved what no institution in the Western world had managed: a successful captive hatchling. The birth made it into the series finale, providing a rare note of genuine hope in an otherwise relentlessly dark story. Eric is now working to return captive-bred specimens to Madagascar — a symbolic act he acknowledges will require ongoing anti-poaching security funding, and may only work long-term if the tortoise is made available through legal captive breeding to reduce black-market demand, drawing a direct analogy to drug legalization.
The illegal wildlife trade has flipped. Native American turtles — wood turtles, spotted turtles, box turtles — are now being collected across the Midwest and shipped to China and Taiwan, where they fetch thousands of dollars each as exotic pets. A recent confiscation was valued at half a million dollars once the turtles reached the Chinese market.
A recent US Fish and Wildlife confiscation of box turtles being smuggled to China was estimated to be worth approximately $500,000 once they reached Chinese markets.
A large Harvard study found that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind — people report greater happiness when their attention is tethered to the present, even if the task is unpleasant.
A key study finding that we have a 'credit card's worth of plastic' in our bodies was likely skewed because researchers used nitrile gloves that shed plastic particles onto the microplastic detector.
Emotionally sensitive people have a hyperactive amygdala, an underactive prefrontal cortex, and a frayed connection between the two — making emotional regulation structurally harder.
Rejection sensitivity can be observed as early as age 2 or 3, suggesting it has strong developmental and likely genetic roots.
A Yale study found that non-judgmental observation of emotions — without rushing to resolve them — reduces activation in the brain, making it a powerful regulation tool.
Dan Gilbert's research found that the psychological immune system — the brain's ability to justify and find satisfaction in choices — activates most powerfully when a decision is perceived as irreversible.
Barry Schwartz's research found that maximizers — people who try to optimize every decision — tend to achieve objectively better outcomes but report lower happiness than satisficers who choose 'good enough.'
Research consistently shows that while people may initially regret poor decisions, in the long run they regret the decisions they didn't make — inaction — far more than the ones they took.
A study showed that men in committed relationships who briefly viewed 10 attractive women's faces reported a measurable decrease in relationship satisfaction immediately afterward, illustrating evolutionary mismatch with modern media.
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