By Scottie Andrew

Now here’s some news you can use: AMC Theatres is halving ticket prices every Wednesday this summer. Half-off tickets during peak movie season (and suffocating heat)? Yes, please!

Typically, I prefer to support my local independent theaters. But with that discount, I can finally watch films I’d usually put off watching or skip completely. That fringy horror flick I couldn’t justify spending $20 on? An indie dramedy with middling reviews and a crush-worthy star? The latest in a Marvel series whose extensive lore I’ve forgotten since the last movie? Wednesday is the day I can watch ‘em all. 

On a steamy summer day, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than a dark theater with powerful air conditioning. (Remember “Barbie” fever in 2023? I saw that film no fewer than eight times in theaters. Not exaggerating!) So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be spending Wednesday evenings at the movies. Won’t you join me?

Here are some good things that happened this week.

Maskot/Digital Vision/Getty Images

The only prescription is more socializing!

Independence is a wonderful thing; ditto alone time. But we’re often at our best when we’re together. 

That’s the central tenet of “social prescribing,” an approach to health that centers on getting involved in your community. Whether you’re taking a group exercise class at a studio nearby, volunteering in your neighborhood garden or joining a group focused on furthering a cause you care about, social prescribing is all about deepening connections to our fellow humans to improve our mental and physical health. (Crucially, it’s meant to complement, not supplant, conventional medicine.)

But how to go about finding the right prescription? Author Julia Hotz, who quite literally wrote the book on social prescribing, identified “five pillars” to help find solutions: Movement, nature, art, service and belonging. To find activities that might slot into these pillars, Hotz suggests asking questions like, “If I had two extra hours in my day, what would I spend them on? What makes me lose track of time?”

I treasure the time I spend solo. But that time is even sweeter when it follows a day full of productivity and friendship.

Lorin Granger/Harvard Law School/AP

A foundational text, bought for a bargain

We all know what it’s like to buy a copy of the Magna Carta for $27 that looks surprisingly realistic, only to realize years later that it’s the real 13th century deal, right? No? Just Harvard Law School? 

Well, the prestigious law school’s library bought the “copy” in 1946 at auction, where it was described as a “somewhat rubbed and damp-stained” reproduction from 1327. Damp and dirty, perhaps, but original! It took nearly 80 years after the purchase to verify its authenticity, when medieval history professor David Carpenter flew from London to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to inspect the seemingly spurious manuscript.

He was shocked to discover it was, in fact, the genuine article — one of maybe seven original issues of the Magna Carta from 1300, Carpenter said.

The Magna Carta, or Great Charter, is considered the earliest declaration of human rights and established the principle that everyone, including monarchs, are subject to the rule of law. Interesting, because one of the “kings” of America’s collegiate system totally lucked into this über-rare artifact. 

 Mateo Salcedo/NYU Langone Health

People (and pig kidneys) are pioneers

“Xenotransplantation” sounds like a term invented for a sci-fi series, and it certainly sounds otherworldly: The procedure transplants animal organs into humans. But the emerging field could eventually become an ingenious solution to a life-threatening problem. 

At any given moment, there are more than 100,000 people waiting for an organ transplant in the US alone. Many of those people will die before they ever undergo the potentially life-saving procedure, and those who remain often have to wait for someone to pass away, or for a perfect match to align, before they get their chance. 

It’s an unsustainable system, said Dr. Robert Montgomery, who heads NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute. Enter the noble pig. In the last year and change, a handful of brave patients have voluntarily received pig kidneys to get off the transplant list, end dialysis and help pioneer a treatment plan that could revolutionize transplantation. 

Progress comes with setbacks: Towana Looney (pictured above) lived with a pig kidney for four months before her body began to reject it due to an unrelated infection. Ever the survivor, Looney told CNN that she hoped her experience could “help and inspire” fellow kidney disease patients and future research. She and her fellow pioneers are “heroes in medicine,” writes CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Cambridge University Library

A surprise from Arthurian legend

Here’s another story of a surprising discovery from the 13th century. (Funny it happened twice in one week!) Researchers recently unveiled pages from a little-known King Arthur story tucked into the binding of another book from medieval times. 

The story, “Suite Vulgate de Merlin,” acts as a sequel to the original legend: Sir Gawain and his brothers face off against rival Saxon Kings; Merlin disguises himself as a handsome harpist; Arthur and Guinevere reign. This copy, one of just over three dozen, was handwritten by a medieval scribe in old French after the story’s 1230 origin date.

But the fragile pages researchers found in the binding were torn and folded up (not to mention hundreds of years old). They couldn’t read the text or determine its age until they created a 3D model of the manuscript and scanned it with an X-ray to peer through its parchment. The team learned that the manuscript was likely used as a cover for another book a few hundred years later. Aha! This one may have been performed in front of French royalty, as poets traveled with the story court to court to read it aloud.