<ul><li><keyword id="13651867" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tezos-india" source="Orion">Tezos India</keyword> will support game developers by providing Ecosystem Growth Grants worth $10,000. </li><li>The online gaming market in <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> is projected to reach 657 million by 2025. </li><li>Game decentralized applications currently account for 52% of the blockchain industry. </li></ul><keyword id="5287675" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="tezos" source="Orion">Tezos</keyword> India, a Indian blockchain adoption entity, has announced the launch of its new initiative titled<a href="https://gaming.tezosindia.org.in/"> Tezos India Game Launchpad (TIGL</a>). This platform will assist game developers with grants and technical support to help launch their games on the Tezos blockchain. “Web3 games will be the next big thing as it is opening new economic and creative opportunities for gamers and game developers. There is potential to unlock a $100 billion gaming market. With this initiative, Tezos India is setting the stage for a decentralized future in gaming where massive participation is expected in times to come,” said Om Malviya, President, Tezos India. This initiative by Tezos India includes an incubation programme, a Web3 gaming handbook, and a Web3 gaming course crafted by the founding team within the Tezos India organization. It will support game developers by providing Ecosystem Growth Grants (EGG) worth $10,000 coupled with an opportunity to join the <keyword id="14562198" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="egg-incubation-program" source="Orion">EGG Incubation Program</keyword> with TZ APAC, the leading Asia-based blockchain adoption entity supporting the Tezos ecosystem. Game decentralized applications (dApps) currently account for <a href="https://dappradar.com/blog/game-guilds-an-analysis-of-the-industrys-health-and-sustainability">52% </a>of the blockchain industry, according to a report by Dappradar. It also says that VCs and private investors have invested over $10 billion into blockchain-based game projects since 2021. Given the widespread use of mobiles and low data rates, the online gaming market in India is projected to reach 657 million by 2025 according to a report by <a href="https://images.assettype.com/afaqs/2021-06/1ef54dc8-61db-410d-893e-957ce23e0103/Beyond_the_tipping_point__A_primer_on_online_casual_gaming_in_India_low_size.pdf">KPMG</a>. Amanjot Malhotra, head of growth at Tezos India, said, “There is an exodus of games from Web2 to Web3 as industry leaders have realized the future of gaming is on the blockchain.“ Interested game developers can submit their applications with details of the project and roadmap on the<a href="https://gaming.tezosindia.org.in/"> </a>TIGL website. TIGL's global partners such as Tezotopia, IndiGG, and others will help the game developers collaborate internationally. SEE ALSO : <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/health/news/suspected-case-of-monkeypox-in-patna/articleshow/93139046.cms">Suspected case of monkeypox in Patna</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/startups/news/rapido-ceo-unicorn-india-invest-in-windo-that-is-helping-small-businesses-take-their-business-online/articleshow/93139058.cms">Rapido CEO, Unicorn India Ventures invest in social commerce startup Windo</a>

There is an exodus of games from Web2 to Web3, says this blockchain adoption entity

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dr. Syra Madad is an infectious diseases epidemiologist in NYC. She's senior director of NYC Health + Hospitals System-wide Special Pathogens Program and fellow for the Harvard Kennedy School, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. </li><li><keyword id="600" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Halloween">Halloween</keyword> — and other fall and winter <keyword id="6372423" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="holidays">holidays</keyword> — during a pandemic will look a little bit different.</li><li>For Halloween, Madad is planning on having a candy egg hunt in her house for her children.</li><li>For holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, one way to spend time with family and friends is merging social bubbles.</li></ul>September is the time my two boys, ages four and six, begin to explore what they're going to be for Halloween. Last year it was superheroes, Black Panther and Iron Man; the year before it was Buzz Lightyear. A couple of weeks ago, they asked to be superheroes again, and to have their new baby sister be Wonder Woman when they go trick-or-treating. But this year's Halloween —or, for that matter, Thanksgiving and Christmas — won't be the same. Instead, we'll be practicing a socially-distanced holiday season.To understand risk levels and activities that may pose a greater risk in terms of exposure, it's important to keep the three C's, or key factors to avoid: crowded places, close-contact settings with extended duration of interaction, and confined and enclosed spaces. The three C's are based on the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/transmission-of-sars-cov-2-implications-for-infection-prevention-precautions">modes of transmission</a> of COVID-19, which can include contact, droplet, airborne, and fomite transmission — among others. <div type="image" title="DFreeman_NewYorkMag_DrMadad003.JPG" height="2616" width="3488" msid="78149612" hostid="261"></div>Traditionally, Halloween trick-or-treating is primarily an outdoor event, and we know outdoor events are much less riskier given better ventilation. But the activity also involves going to multiple homes and getting treats. For the purposes of this discussion, I'll focus on fomite transmission, as Halloween activities can involve not only coming into close contact with someone, but also getting a treat (e.g. candy).If someone is infected with COVID-19, their respiratory secretions can contaminate surfaces or objects, creating fomites. Fomites can potentially transfer the virus to a new person. For example, an infected person with COVID-19 coughs or sneezes into their hands, and then proceeds to touch a bowl of candy to distribute or directly expels droplets into the bowl of candy. A new person touches the contaminated candy, then proceeds to touch their mucous membranes (eyes, nose, or mouth). Sounds scary? Well, this is much easier said than done; let's break it down a bit further. First, fomite transmission is not the primary mode of COVID-19 spread — respiratory droplets and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/faq.html#:~:text=Current%20data%20suggest%20that%20close,of%20SARS%2DCoV%2D2.">close-range aerosol transmission</a> are. Second, fomite transmission can potentially occur if there's enough viable SARS-COV-2 virus that can cause infection – but we still don't know the amount of virus, or viral load that can actually cause infection. Third, the possibility of someone infected with COVID-19 expelling enough viable respiratory droplets on a treat and trick-or-treater, then touching that same area, followed by touching their mucous membranes is low (but not zero). And fourth, with all this said and done, there are <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/transmission-of-sars-cov-2-implications-for-infection-prevention-precautions">no specific reports</a> which have shown direct fomite transmission. There's a lot we've learned about COVID-19 over the past eight months, but there's still a lot we still don't know.<h2>So how best to keep up the Halloween spirit (no pun intended) but keep it socially-distanced?</h2>For my family, I plan to do a Halloween candy egg hunt around our house. I've purchased multi-colored plastic eggs online. During my most recent grocery store trip I wandered into the holiday aisle where the Halloween spread is ready for the picking. I've purchased bite size candy and plan to hide the eggs around our backyard and inside our home, and have the kids find them in their Halloween costume.<h2>For more "human contact," like celebrating the holidays with friends and families indoors for an extended period of time, another option is to merge social bubbles. </h2>A social bubble is non-household contact(s) that can freely interact with one another indoors without <keyword id="8897280" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="social-distancing">social distancing</keyword> or wearing a mask. These social bubbles play it safe by a set of agreed upon rules – they limit their social interactions outside the bubble and practice protective measures like wearing a mask and abiding by isolation and quarantine guidelines if a member has been exposed to or diagnosed with COVID-19. While there's no hard and fast rule in terms of the number of people to have in a social bubble, the general guidance is less than 10-12, or less than two to three households. The higher the number of people, the greater the risk of potential exposure and transmission of COVID-19. To merge social bubbles, the non-test-based approach is to quarantine for 14 days, the incubation period of COVID-19 prior to merging. Something else to take into account when merging social bubbles is that risk is not uniform. Some individuals are at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 based on their demographics, occupation, certain underlying health conditions, risk behaviors, and other determinants of health. Decisions to merge social bubbles should include individual risk factors and similar risk profiles. It's also important to take local epidemiological risk conditions into context when merging social bubbles, like traveling from one area with a high rate of COVID-19 infections to an area with lower rates of COVID-19 infections, and the need to quarantine for 14 days after arrival.<h2>To throw another wrench into the upcoming holidays, flu season will be upon us very soon. </h2>This means that not only will there be ongoing COVID-19 activity, there will also be seasonal flu thrown into the mix. There are overlapping signs and symptoms of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza — making it harder to distinguish. While there is some optimism the preventative measures being taken for COVID-19, like wearing a mask, keeping a distance from others, and washing hands often will also help reduce the rate of seasonal influenza activity, this is yet to be seen here in the United States. Regardless, the same general principles should apply when merging social bubbles.<h2>Do keep in mind, while we're trying to minimize risk of exposure and still create that holiday spirit (pun was intended there) the risk will not be zero. </h2>But it's not an all or nothing approach either. As we find ways to safely interact with family and friends through brief outdoor gatherings or masking and watching our distance indoors, or through these social bubbles for extended, indoor periods of time, we should tighten our protective measures in other ways. This means we must prioritize and do trade-offs to try to minimize the risk of infection while adhering to safety measures (e.g. wearing a mask). Perhaps you want to get a haircut, go grocery shopping, and dine out with a friend. Every one of these interactions may include coming into contact with non-household members, potentially prolonged interactions, crowds, confined spaces, poor ventilation all of which can increase one's risk of infection.Instead, prioritize which activities would be the least risky: outdoors vs. indoors, a restaurant with multiple diners vs. solo dinner with a friend, hair cut by appointment vs. walk in with multiple patrons. Do keep in mind it can take just one unsafe encounter to contract COVID-19.Certainly, rapid, cheap, and highly accessible COVID-19 testing can be a gamechanger come holiday season. There's still a lot that can change between now and Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for now, I'm going to take it one holiday at a time and enjoy Halloween the socially-distant way.This Business Insider article was originally published on September 16, 2020.

How to celebrate Halloween with your kids while staying safe during COVID-19, according to an epidemiologist

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5cb6530978361d12023377e2-2400/headshot.jpg" border="0" alt="Tammy Sun" data-mce-source="Courtesy of Carrot" data-mce-caption="Tammy Sun" /></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li style="font-weight: 400;">Carrot, which helps companies offer their employees comprehensive fertility benefits, raised $11.5 million in Series A funding. CRV led the round, with participation from Sound Ventures, Y Combinator, and Uncork Capital.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">Tammy Sun founded Carrot in 2016 after experiencing what she describes as the expensive, confusing fertility treatment system. The company covers egg freezing, surrogacy, adoption, and other fertility treatments that are not typically covered by employer-offered insurance plans.</li><li style="font-weight: 400;">According to Sun, fertility benefits will be the "fourth pillar" of coverage employers that will offer to employees in addition to medical, dental, and vision benefits. </li><li style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.</a></li></ul>After sinking more than $35,000 into her own fertility treatment, Tammy Sun realized that the whole expensive, time-consuming, confusing process was out of reach for many."It became a problem I couldn't let go of," Sun tells Business Insider. "I wasn't sure what I was going to build. I wasn't sure I would even start a company, but I was obsessed with this problem. My friends, my sister, my family, I could see them in different permutations struggling with fertility in their own ways. That's how it all started." By January 2016 she had left her job and started Carrot, a solution that helps companies offer their employees comprehensive fertility benefits. On Wednesday Carrot announced it closed $11.5 million in Series A financing, bringing its total funding to $15 million since 2016. CRV led the round, and partner Reid Christianson has come on as Carrot's first board member. Read More: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/defy-ventures-fund-ii2019-4">A pair of VCs who invested in Nest and The Honest Company explain why they raised a $262 million fund to invest in young startups</a>"[Tammy] is incredibly passionate about [fertility benefits] based on her own experience going through and freezing her own eggs. She has both industry understanding and empathy coupled with her business acumen. She is signing up customer after customer so she's found product-market fit, but her vision and personal experience drew me in initially," said Christianson.Carrot works directly with companies to offer employees fertility benefits as part of a larger benefits package. Sun sees Carrot as the "fourth pillar" of corporate benefits, adding to medical, dental, and vision. Companies work with Carrot to design a program that works best for their employees and outline a coverage amount. From there, employees have their pick of fertility services, including egg freezing, fertility testing, adoption, surrogacy, and sperm freezing."That financial coverage is available for a person who wants to freeze their eggs as equally as it is for a male employee with a male partner to get donor eggs and a surrogate. It's not restricted to women or the even more narrow view of legacy insurance of women diagnosed with infertility," said Sun.<h2>A solution that hit close to home</h2>When Sun decided to seek fertility treatment in 2015, she quickly realized the barriers to patients seeking the treatment she saw as a fundamental part of her healthcare. In addition to the prohibitive costs, she says the patient forms included legal language that had nothing to do with the procedure, and was ultimately denied insurance coverage because she did not meet the highly-specific requirements for an infertility diagnosis. Although Sun worked with the HR department of her then-employer, she knew time was of the essence and decided to pay out of pocket for the treatment."I literally Googled a fertility clinic in San Francisco and went to the first one that showed up," said Sun. "Ultimately it wasn't the right one for me and I went to a different clinic, but I felt the entire system was set up for a very narrow subset of people from the moment I walked in."During her own fertility treatment, Sun said she didn't talk about it except with her close friends and family. Egg freezing was still experimental, she explained, and there was still a stigma on people seeking fertility treatments more broadly. Coupled with the exorbitant costs and lack of information, it was clear to her that these people needed a better option.Sun considers herself lucky, even though she drained her savings account to pay for the $35,000 treatment. She explained that most insurance companies will only cover women in heterosexual relationships that have been trying to conceive for a predetermined amount of time, which leaves out a substantial percentage of people who want to conceive."There are lots of pain points. Access to education is a problem that I personally felt, access to support and care navigation that I personally felt. But the first and most important problem, the one that is transformational to fertility care overall, is the access problem related to affordability. Bottom line is that not enough people who seek fertility care cannot afford it financially," said Sun. "Now with Carrot, employers who previously could not have offered a benefit like this because there wasn't an off the shelf tech solution can, and employees benefit from that."<h2>Expanding access for all </h2>Stephanie Palmieri met Sun as the latter was just getting Carrot off the ground after completing a season in Y Combinator, the prominent Silicon Valley startup incubator. As a partner at Uncork Capital, Palmieri was scouting companies specializing in fertility technology for potential investment, and ultimately led Carrot's $3.6 million Seed round in 2017. Now, Palmieri praises Sun's commitment to solving this problem. "While Carrot goes through employers, the end consumer is ultimately an individual," said Palmieri. "She has a great deal of respect for the problems those individuals face. She's wit smart, she knows the space, and she understands the concerns. She understands where the levers to drive the business are."Available in 40 countries, Sun said U.S.-based multinational companies are the fastest-growing segment of Carrot customers. She says that <a href="https://techcrunch.com/gallery/the-top-10-tech-companies-with-the-best-fertility-benefits/">as the tech giants have popularized the idea of fertility treatment</a> as a benefit of employment, others have wanted to follow in their footsteps."Google and Facebook introduced this idea 5 years ago and sent a signal into the economy that [fertility benefits] were emerging [as a priority]. The science and technology on the science side has gotten so much better, so it's a combination of a lot of things hitting the mainstream at the same time really," said Sun. "It's progress. It's scientific and social progress."<h2>An more modern benefit</h2>With its influx of capital, Sun says Carrot is planning on expanding support to more companies and more countries as employees continue to demand coverage as part of their benefits packages."I think the underlying demographics of this type of business is that people who seek access to this type of care increasingly expect fertility benefits to be covered at work," said Sun. "More men and women are having children later, gay and lesbian couples and couples with seeking donor eggs and third party reproduction options like adoption are all part of the modern experience of fertility."According to Christianson, part of the demographic shift is driven by consumer transparency around fertility and difficulties conceiving. As more people talk about it, he explains, the more normalized fertility benefits will become. "Right now, employers are in a very interesting place," Christianson said. "They are faced with a lot of headwinds and competition when it comes to recruiting and retention, but there is a strong sense of urgency in caring for employees and promoting a diverse and inclusive environment.""On one hand [Carrot] is a benefit, but on the other it is a stamp of approval for the company," Christianson continued.

This CEO just raised $11.5 million to fix the broken field of fertility treatment by helping companies offer it as an employee benefit: 'A problem I couldn't let go of'

Read the application 2 founders who bootstrapped their business used to get into Y Combinator, the startup accelerator that launched Airbnb and Dropbox

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58de55be8af57875038b540a-1200/undefined" alt="Samumed 4x3" data-mce-source="Diana Yukari/Business Insider; photos courtesy Samumed" data-mce-caption="Samumed CEO Osman Kibar, CFO Cevdet Samikoglu, and chief medical officer Yusuf Yazici">Diana Yukari/Business Insider; photos courtesy SamumedSamumed chief executive Osman Kibar; chief financial officer Cevdet Samikoglu; and chief medical officer Yusuf Yazici.</img></div></div></div>Samumed is a $12 billion private biotech startup you've probably never heard of.The San Diego-based company has attracted $300 million in funding and a heady valuation thanks to a pipeline of what could be revolutionary treatments to regenerate hair, skin, bones, and joints.It offers the promise of reversing conditions related to aging by regrowing hair on balding heads, smoothing out wrinkles, and regenerating cartilage to worn-down joints in people with osteoarthritis.If that seems to be too good to be true, the company is well aware."We get that reaction from anyone who actually listens to our story," CEO Osman Kibar told Business Insider in January.That skepticism has only grown with the company's valuation, which is now one of the highest for a private biotech company. The firm's list of backers - lacking as it does specialist healthcare investors - and secrecy over its <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> have also raised questions.Then there's Theranos, the onetime $9 billion startup that has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/was-there-a-theranos-effect-in-biotech-2017-1">fallen from grace and now casts a pall</a> over the healthcare-startup space.Cevdet Samikoglu, Samumed's chief financial officer, understands all of that. In fact, he asked many of the same questions. Samikoglu met Kibar more than 30 years when they both attended Robert College, a high school in Istanbul. Kibar had worked in venture capital, launched a company that later sold to pharma giant Novartis, and eventually created an incubator where he came across the technology that would become the backbone for Samumed.Samikoglu signed on as an investor in Samumed initially in 2007, at which point he asked the same question."I'd basically badger [Kibar] with that question time and again," Samikoglu said. "When I came on board, the first few months I was kind of thinking about that, 'I can't believe we're sitting on this, I can't believe the potential of it.'"Unlike Theranos, Samumed has been open about presenting its data, and before it gets to the market, the treatments will have to be approved by the FDA.In the end, Samikoglu simply became too busy to think about it."We might be sitting on a molecule that already has the answer," he said. "But taking that and making it into a drug is a decade-long struggle."<h2>Here's the science</h2>Your body is equipped with something called progenitor stem cells. These cells are in charge of repairing and replenishing specific organs in the body. For example, a mesenchymal stem cell of the osteoblast lineage can go in and repair bone that's damaged. That process has something to do with the WNT pathway, a set of proteins that tell these stem cells to spring into action."By dialing up or down various WNT genes or WNT processes, you can trigger any one of these progenitor stem cells down a certain lineage," Kibar said.As we get older, our WNT levels start to get out of balance, Kibar said. Take the example of mesenchymal stem cells. "If the WNT activity levels can no longer increase such that it's not making enough bone, now you develop osteoporosis."What Samumed hopes to do is manipulate the pathway that makes these progenitor stem cells spring into action, so that they don't cause these diseases.For example, Samumed has a treatment for androgenetic alopecia, a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjY3t-trbnLAhWETSYKHeaHDYYQFggcMAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fghr.nlm.nih.gov%2Fcondition%2Fandrogenetic-alopecia&amp;usg=AFQjCNGeNpb0FCCzVE66uSVuX4nexSmOGQ&amp;bvm=bv.116573086,bs.1,d.cWw">common form of hair loss</a>. The idea is that by using the treatment, people with alopecia will be able to regrow some of their lost hair follicles, which are the layer of cells and connective tissue that envelop the root of a hair and are critical for its growth.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56e31c3552bcd029008b5d61-800" alt="Alopecia" data-mce-source="Wikimedia Commons">Wikimedia Commons</img></div></div></div>So far, the data looks promising.A phase-two trial (the stage at which drugs are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-fda-drug-approval-works-2017-2/#-2">stacked up against a placebo control to see if they're safe and work as intended</a>) presented in 2016 to the American Academy of Dermatology <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-the-samumed-baldness-treatment-2016-3">looked at the effects</a> of a topical treatment called SM04554 in about 300 men ages 18-55. The men were split into three groups: a placebo group, a group given a .15% dose of the treatment, and a group given a .25% dose of the treatment.At the end of 135 days, those given the lower dose saw the most hair growth with an increase of roughly 10%. Those on the higher dose saw an increase of about 7%. And those on the placebo, not surprisingly, continued to lose hair.In a <a href="https://www.samumed.com/medium/image/samumed-presented-data-on-increases-in-hair-follicles-observed-in-its-phase-2-biopsy-study-for-a-pot_63/view.aspx">second study</a>, 49 men were split into the same three groups. They had the skin on top of their heads biopsied at the beginning, after 90 days, and at the end of the 135-day trial. That gave the researchers a peek into what was happening at the hair-follicle level. They found that those taking the two doses had greater hair-follicle growth than the placebo group, confirming what the other study saw on the surface, Samumed chief medical officer Yusuf Yazici told Business Insider.In the second study, those on the .25% had slightly more follicle growth than the .15% group. To get an even better picture of how the treatments work long term, Samumed is setting up another phase-two trial that will include both doses to figure out which one is the best to use in a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-fda-drug-approval-works-2017-2/#-3">phase-three study</a> that could set the treatment up for approval with the FDA.Samumed will have to show that the treatment works better than placebo in regenerating hair. And even then there is still some skepticism about how long the effects will last."Can you generate a long-lasting tissue that can negotiate its way through to aging, fibrosis, damage, and stay put all these years?" Dr. Shahin Rafii, a professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College told Business Insider. Rafii is one of the scientific founders of Angiocrine Sciences, a company using endothelial cells to repair tendons and treat lung diseases.While Samumed's hair-loss program might have the most data to date, its osteoarthritis program is the closest to getting into a phase-three trial, Yazici said. That program is trying to regenerate cartilage in the knee to replace what's lost in patients with osteoarthritis, a condition that affects <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/basics/osteoarthritis.htm">30 million Americans</a>. If it's successful, it could be the first treatment to regrow cartilage.Samumed has seven drugs in human clinical trials up to phase two and plans to be in 10 disease areas by the end of 2017. Samumed is also applying its WNT-activating technology to treatments for colon cancer, degenerative-disc disease, and tendinopathy, as well as to cosmetics in order to wipe out wrinkles.<h2>Secrecy and privacy</h2>When Kibar first asked Samikoglu to sign on about seven years ago, and he decided to relocate from New York to California, his wife asked, "How long will this adventure last in San Diego?"At the time, he told her that he expected it to be a few years before the company was able to get to an initial public offering. Now, it's looking like the company might not go public until it can get an approved product and start generating revenue, Kibar said at the Forbes Healthcare Summit in December 2016."In an ideal world, I think every biotech company would want to remain private so they can focus only on the science, without thinking about what the market requires," Samikoglu said. "We are that lucky company."<blockquote class="pullquote">In an ideal world, I think every biotech company would want to remain private so they can focus only on the science.</blockquote>The $12 billion valuation Samumed has right now is based on the $300 million it has raised over the years. The valuation grew based on its lead compound, with the rest of the pipeline thrown in as a "freebie," Kibar said.The valuation is among the highest in biotech. Stemcentrx, a cancer-drug company, had a $5 billion valuation before it was bought by AbbVie in a $10.2 billion deal. And Moderna Therapeutics is edging up on a $5 billion valuation, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/13/moderna-therapeutics-biotech-mrna/">according to Stat News</a>.Samumed has backers who aren't traditional life-sciences investors, including high-net-worth individuals and sovereign funds. Finian Tan, whose firm Vickers Venture Partners is the only VC to fund Samumed, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-09/eternal-youth-is-the-next-big-bet-for-singapore-venture-capitalist">told Bloomberg</a> that he expected his investment to pay off even more than his early investment in Chinese tech giant Baidu."I've always been radical," he told Bloomberg. "For us, it's all about home runs."The lack of well-known healthcare specialist investors has led to some skepticism, along with comparisons to blood-testing company Theranos, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-reportedly-had-200-million-in-cash-at-end-of-2016-2017-2">raised $725 million</a> and had a $9 billion valuation before The Wall Street Journal published <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901">an investigation</a> that questioned the accuracy of Theranos' blood test and led to its <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-announces-closure-of-clinical-labs-2016-10">clinical labs getting shut down</a>.Samumed is also keeping the nitty-gritty of how it is able to apply its WNT technology close to its chest, and that <a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/14/the-samumed-story">has raised some eyebrows</a>."To summarize our secretiveness, we don't disclose our targets, we don't disclose our chemical structures," Kibar said. When it comes to data, the company is big on presenting at conferences and plans to publish later-stage trials in academic journals."We're basically telling everyone, here's proof that it works," Kibar said. "How it works - you just need to wait a little longer, because we want to build as much a head start as we can."The key difference is that Samumed is being public about its data. It presents at medical conferences, where it gets peer-reviewed as part of the vetting process, Kibar said. And before it gets on the market, it will have to be approved by the FDA."Ultimately, we will live or die with the strength of our data," Kibar said. "Because we are in the business of therapeutics, we don't have the luxury of not sharing data with the regulatory agencies."<h2>The promise and pitfalls of treating diseases related to aging</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53c7eb13eab8eac512a32dc0-1122/stem-cells-biggest-2.jpeg" alt="stem cells biggest" data-mce-source="AFP">AFP</img></div></div></div>Samumed's furthest-along treatments are in phase-two trials, which means there is still a ways to go before the treatments can be evaluated by the FDA. If one or more of the company's treatments can be approved, it would be a big deal for regenerative medicine, not to mention the promise of antiaging treatments.In the past few years, there's been a fair amount of interest in companies like Samumed that are trying to treat diseases of aging.Unity Biotechnology, which is working on treatments that act on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-to-stop-aging-unity-biotechnology-2016-11">senescent cells</a> (cells that have permanently stopped dividing that have been linked to conditions as varied as <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6311/472">heart conditions</a> and <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7372/full/nature10600.html#methods">eye problems</a>) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-to-stop-aging-unity-biotechnology-2016-11">in October raised $116 million</a> from investors including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.In 2013, Google founded Calico, a biotechnology company devoted to learning how to extend the human lifespan.And over the past few decades, researchers have made strides to understanding more about stem cells and regeneration. There have been a <a href="http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v20/n8/abs/nm.3627.html">number of setbacks</a>, and there's no guarantee this new wave of companies won't fail as well. Still, researchers are optimistic."If you hit any one of these, you're going to be helping literally tens of millions of people,"<blockquote class="pullquote">"If you hit any one of these, you're going to be helping literally tens of millions of people,"</blockquote>Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Astellas Institute of Regenerative Medicine, told Business Insider.Astellas is working on treatments for blindness using stem cells. To make that or other treatments a reality, Lanza is pulling together leaders and scientists in the regenerative-medicine world to stack the deck in his favor. "We're in a good position to make a difference," he said.Ned David, president of Unity, told Business Insider that he found Samumed's approach thoughtful. Like Samumed's work on the WNT pathway, treatments that remove senescent cells are still in the experimental stages."The tragedy for either one of those biologies would be that you picked an indication, eggs in one basket, bet everything on red. Then you flip the data card, you flip the wrong patients, chose the wrong molecule, or didn't dose right, and the whole company dies and the science is set back a decade," David said. "That's a social tragedy."So that way, if you spread everything out, go after really different drugs, your odds go up, the thinking goes."If you bet everything on red, the chance it works is way less than a coin flip. And if you got two, the chance that either of those work is still less than a coin flip. Three, you're starting to look coin-flip level," David said. "That's something I can get my head around." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dead-zones-threaten-coral-reefs-worldwide-ocean-smithsonian-tropical-research-institute-2017-3">Ocean 'dead zones' exist - and there are more of them than scientists thought</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="tiZDlmYTE6t_oUYqrNwjCOes39IfXOC4" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'tiZDlmYTE6t_oUYqrNwjCOes39IfXOC4',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

A $12 billion startup you've probably never heard wants to cure baldness and smooth out your wrinkles

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5cacc6f177584e5db9710167-2000/team goodly.jpeg" border="0" alt="Goodly early team" data-mce-source="Courtesy of Greg Poulin" />Courtesy of Greg PoulinPictured, from left to right, are Billy McGrath, Dylan Blatt, Gregory Poulin, Hemant Verma, and Niko Lalos, the founders and early employees of Goodly.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/y-combinator">Y Combinator</a> is a startup accelerator that's launched successful companies such as Airbnb and Dropbox.</li><li>Goodly is a new startup that helps companies offering to pay down their employees' student debt. They were part of Y Combinator's summer 2018 batch.</li><li>Here's Goodly's successful application to Y Combinator.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.</a></li></ul>Greg Poulin and Hemant Verma left their jobs in April 2018 to start their own company.At the time, they both worked at Rippling, a service that provides businesses with easy onboarding tools. They weren't especially worried about striking out on their own, Poulin said, because they felt they'd stumbled onto a huge opportunity.Their idea was to build a startup that helped companies pay down part of their employees' student loans. Employers would make matching contributions the same way they would for employees' 401(k) retirement plans.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/goodly-a-y-combinator-startup-wants-to-help-employees-repay-student-debt-2018-11">The issue was personal</a> for both Poulin and Verma. While Poulin was a student at Dartmouth, he borrowed $80,000 in student loans. Meanwhile, Verma was still paying off debts from his own education in India.The founders submitted an application for Y Combinator - the startup accelerator that's launched the likes of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-y-combinator-application-from-2007-by-drew-houston-2018-3">Dropbox</a>, Airbnb, and Stripe (as well as Rippling). Y Combinator is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-into-y-combinator-2018-11">notoriously selective</a>, accepting less than 5% of the founders that come its way.Goodly was accepted into Y Combinator's summer 2018 batch, meaning the company received a $150,000 seed investment in exchange for giving up a small amount of equity.In March 2019, Goodly <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190327005503/en/Goodly-Announces-1.3M-Seed-Funding-Student-Loan">closed a $1.3 million round</a> of seed funding, led by Norwest Venture Partners.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-y-combinator-partner-founder-side-projects-2018-10">A former Y Combinator partner realized the most successful founders don't always look good on paper - there's a much more reliable sign they're destined for greatness</a>Here's their original application to Y Combinator.(Note: This is an unedited copy of the application, though we've redacted phone numbers and email addresses. The parentheticals throughout are instructions found on the application.)COMPANYCompany name:GoodlyCompany url, if any:https://www.goodlyapp.com/If you have a demo, what's the url? For non-software, demo can be a video.(Please don't password protect it; just use an obscure url.)https://youtu.be/wYeR55ccjwEDescribe your company in 50 characters or less.Student Loan Repayment as an Employee Benefit What is your company going to make?Goodly makes it easy for employers to offer student loan repayment benefits. Our platform allows employers to make monthly payments directly to employees' student debt. Similar to a 401k to pay down student loans. Offering student loan benefits as an incentive for recruiting and retaining top employees and to foster diversity and inclusion has become increasingly essential for employers. Student loan benefits rank as one of the most desirable employee benefits for millennial and gen z employees. When we looked at existing options, it was clear that the market does not have a great solution for employers that want to offer student loan benefits. Current options are difficult to implement, expensive, and have limited resources for employees. Goodly will: Benefits administrator: implement plans, enroll employees, verify student loans, and facilitate payments.Improve workplace diversity: - Women hold two-thirds (66%) of all student loan debt - Black and Latinx Americans have 31% higher student loan debt - LGBTQ community holds significantly higher debt on averageWhich category best applies to your company?B2BIs this application in response to a YC <a href="http://email.email.ycombinator.com/c/eJwVjcuqwyAURb8mDkVP1daBg076G5ej0UTwEcwpoX9_DWzYDzas1SkFSbPsNCYQYRXSY_hTIinwQmhpPCYlQJqoFiVyozgaFl4xF7a7p34pixqs0aANJKtlTDYYeCRlTYysuJ3oWB7vBT5T13XxX-jV54bUB59xriOdfKda2HDbiFsfP1750b8lt8ncbtb9ZOTwOEoOSLm3c9YThHzd_vU1E8X1Hz56QkY">RFS</a>?YesIf yes, which one?DiversityWhere do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?(List as City A, Country A / City B, Country B.)San Francisco, USA / San Francisco, USACONTACTEmail address of the founder who is filling out this application:[Redacted]Phone number(s):[Redacted]FOUNDERSFounders<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5cacd70816c95842b94a0774-692/goodly screenshot redacted.png" border="0" alt="goodly screenshot redacted" data-mce-source="Screenshot/Goodly" />Screenshot/Goodly</div></div></div>Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founders. (Follow the Video Guidelines.)https://youtu.be/wvI8fei2nvAPlease tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.Last winter, we were curious about what it would take to build a decentralized social network and hacked together Peppy, a block-chain alternative to Twitter as an experiment. How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?Greg and Hemant have known each other for well over a year, and met when they started working as early hires at Rippling YC W17 out of Parker Conrad's unfinished basement in the Mission. PROGRESSHow far along are you?We're building our MVP. Over a two week period we met with 40 thought leaders in the HR/benefits space, including startup founders, tech CEOs, VC's on the boards of HR/benefits companies, and HR and people operations employees in our target market to guide our product development. We started sales outreach for our alpha last Friday, by end of day Monday we had five alpha customers. How long have each of you been working on this? Have you been part-time or full-time? Please explain.We quit our jobs at Rippling four weeks ago to work on this full-time. Which of the following best describes your progress?PrototypeHow many active users or customers do you have? If you have some particularly valuable customers, who are they?We have five alpha customers that we're onboarding this week. Do you have revenue? NoAnything else you would like us to know regarding your revenue or growth rate?We're preparing to launch our beta and plan to have revenue soon.How much money do you spend per month? 500How much money does your company have in the bank now? 0How long is your runway?(e.g. 5 months)We're bootstrapped, but have received investment offers, including from the CEO of Postmates. We have enough savings to go a year without funding or revenue, but we hope to get revenue soon.If you've applied previously with the same idea, how much progress have you made since the last time you applied? Anything change?This is our first time applying :)If you have already participated or committed to participate in an incubator, "accelerator" or "pre-accelerator" program, please tell us about it.Nope.IDEAWhy did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you're making?We picked this idea for three reasons: Idea: Goodly came from Greg's personal experience with student loans. After Greg's father passed away unexpectedly due to a heart attack, he had to borrow $80k in student loans to pay for his education at Dartmouth. After moving to Silicon Valley to work for a startup, he saw the war for talent and how challenging it is for tech companies to hire a diverse workforce. Need: - 44 million Americans hold $1.5 trillion in student loan debt (300% increase since 2006) - 70% of Americans graduate from college with debt - Average borrower owes $37,127 - 22 years (average time to payoff) - 1 in 4 student loan borrowers are in default - 37% have missed at least one payment 49% of millennials prefer student loan benefits to a 401k and 53% would consider a salary cut to have this benefit. 86% of employees said they'd stay with a company for at least 5 years if their employer helped pay down their student loans. Goodly bridges the gap between the demand for this benefit from employees and the cost and complexity of administering student loan benefits for employers. Domain expertise: Hemant and Greg gained deep domain expertise building and selling HR/benefits software at Rippling. They started working together a week apart, before Rippling launched or had customers, and helped build the company from the ground up. Hemant built over 100 of Rippling's integrations. During YC W17, Greg worked with Parker to develop and execute Rippling's go to market and first sales strategy. Greg had a 75% close rate selling Rippling's HR/benefits software. What's new about what you're making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?The implementation process for employee benefits solutions on the market today can be needlessly complex and expensive. Many HR/benefits solutions are cumbersome and cost prohibitive for many employers to offer. Goodly can be implemented in 10 minutes and is flexible enough to fit any budget with no setup or annual fees. Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?Gradii, Tuition, Student Loan Genius, Peanut Butter We fear large financial institutions with significant resources and existing partnerships.What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don't get?A focus on employees (not just employers) as end users: Many employee benefit vendors are focused on developing relationships with employers, Goodly is building a highly differentiated brand that is employee centric. Goodly will provide all of the tools needed for employees with student debt manage and pay off their student loans, allowing Goodly to become a trusted resource for employees and employers. How do or will you make money? How much could you make?(We realize you can't know precisely, but give your best estimate.)Starting with a bottom up approach, our initial target market will be startups with 1 to 500 employees. Our immediate source of revenue will be a SaaS-based pricing model of $6/month for each employee that participates with no setup costs or annual fees. 44 million Americans have student debt, charging $6/month x 12 months would produce $3.16 billion in ARR. The total U.S. student loan market is $1.5 trillion (larger than all consumer credit cards and auto loans) and growing by $2,726 per second.Bipartisan legislation in Congress would make up to $5,250 a year in employer contributions for student loan repayment tax-free. The bill has 118 co-sponsors as of April 17, 2018. How will you get users? If your idea is the type that faces a chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that it won't be attractive to users till it has a lot of users (e.g. a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you overcome that?Bottom-up approach targeting other startups as beta users and rapidly expanding to target professional services companies (law firms, consultants/MBAs, medical/dental) to gain a foothold in the market and then expand to other sectors. - Working through personal networks to gain traction with beta users - Connecting with startups in major tech hubs - Education/Awareness: seminars/workshops for employees on how to manage student loans - Online distribution to employers - White papers/case studies - Gaining traction in the press/media EQUITYHave you incorporated, or formed any legal entity (like an LLC) yet?YesWhat kind of entity and in what state or country was the entity formed?(e.g. Delaware C Corp)Delaware C Corp.Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership in percentages among the founders, employees and any other stockholders.50/50 List any investments your company has received. Include the name of the investor, the amount invested, the premoney valuation / valuation cap, and the type of security sold (convertible notes, safes or stock).We're bootstrapping, but have received investment offers. Please provide any other relevant information about the structure or formation of the company.We formed the company using Gust Launch. Goodly's incorporation documents were reviewed by Mike Sullivan (a partner and head of the Corporate Group at Orrick serving as a mentor to Greg).LEGALAre any of the founders covered by noncompetes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? If so, please explain.NopeWho writes code, or does other technical work on your product? Was any of it done by a non-founder? Please explain.Hemant writes the code and technical work. Is there anything else we should know about your company?(Pending lawsuits, cofounders who have left, etc.)Nope OTHERSIf you had any other ideas you considered applying with, please list them. One may be something we've been waiting for. Often when we fund people it's to do something they list here and not in the main application.Marketplace for job applicants to find open roles at companies that offer the benefits that matter most to them. Please tell us something surprising or amusing that one of you has discovered. (The answer need not be related to your project.)Recent college grads in the Bay Area without student loan debt will spend 12 years saving for a home. Recent college grads with debt will spend 27 years to do the same. CURIOUSWhat convinced you to apply to Y Combinator?The first thing Parker said when Greg told him what we're building was "Apply to YC!" We want to rapidly accelerate our growth and saw first-hand the value YC provides to early stage companies during our time working at YC companies, including at Rippling W17 and Optimizely W10. Many of our friends and colleagues are YC founders and pushed us to apply for the S18 batch, including: Parker Conrad Rippling W17 and Zenefits W13, Ryan Jackson MicroEval S12 and Paid S14, Jeff LaBarge Tule S14, Marta Jamrozik VanGo W17, and Zack Brown Haiku W18.How did you hear about Y Combinator?Reading PG's essay's over the years and being early employees at YC companies. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kylie-jenner-kardashian-youngest-self-made-billionaire-forbes-net-worth-fortune-2019-3">Kylie Jenner is the 'youngest self-made billionaire' and the wealthiest member of her family. Here's how she makes and spends her fortune.</a></h3> <div> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/CU4Pg90h-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script> </div> </div>

Read the application form that got a company with $0 in the bank into the selective startup accelerator that launched Airbnb and Dropbox

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5272a53d6bb3f728055893b3-1200-924/southern-belle.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="southern belle " width="480" /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauls95blazer/">Flickr/Pauls95blazer</a></div></div>Language discrepancies naturally arise in different geographic regions, like the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/soda-vs-pop-map-2012-7">raging "pop" vs. "soda" debate.</a>
But <keyword id="1781283" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-South">the South</keyword> undoubtedly takes the cake.
Conversations south of the Mason-Dixon line will befuddle anyone not born there.
We chose 15 of the most ridiculous Southern sayings - and tried to explain them.
<h3>1. "We're living in high cotton."</h3>
Cotton has long been a key crop to the South's economy, so every harvest farmers pray for tall bushes loaded with white fluffy balls in their fields. Tall cotton bushes are easier to pick and yield higher returns. If you're living "in high cotton," it means you're feeling particularly successful or wealthy.
<h3>2. "She was madder than a wet hen."</h3>
Hens sometimes enter a phase of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broodiness">broodiness</a>" - they'll stop at nothing to incubate their eggs and get agitated when farmers try to collect them. Farmers used to dunk hens in cold water to "break" their broodiness.
You don't want to be around a hormonal hen after she's had an ice bath.
<h3>3. "He could eat corn through a picket fence."</h3>
This describes someone with an unfortunate set of buck teeth. They tend to stick up and outward, like a horse's teeth. Imagine a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gic0W9tUpm0">horse eating a carrot</a>, and you'll get the picture.
<h3>4. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."</h3>
A pig's ear may look soft, pink, and shiny, but you're not fooling anyone by calling it your new Marc Jacobs bag. A Southerner might say this about her redneck cousin who likes to decorate his house with deer antlers.
<h3>5. "You look rode hard and put up wet."</h3>
No, this isn't Southern sexual innuendo. The phrase refers to a key step in horse grooming - when a horse runs fast, it works up a sweat, especially under the saddle. A good rider knows to walk the horse around so it can dry off before going back to the stable. A horse will look sick and tired if you forget this step, much like a person who misses sleep or drinks too much.
<h3>6. "He's as drunk as Cooter Brown."</h3>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooter_Brown">Cooter Brown</a> is an infamous character in Southern lore. Legend tells that he lived on the Mason-Dixon line - the border between the North and South - during the Civil War. To avoid the draft on either side, Cooter decided to stay drunk throughout the entire war, making him ineligible for battle.
Inebriated Southerners have measured their drunkenness by him ever since.
<h3>7. "She's as happy as a dead pig in the sunshine."</h3>
When a pig dies, presumably in a sty outside, the sun dries out its skin. This effect pulls the pig's lips back to reveal a toothy "grin," making it look happy even though it's dead. This phrase describes a person who's blissfully ignorant of reality.
<h3>8. "She's got more nerve than Carter's got Liver Pills."</h3>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter%27s_Little_Liver_Pills">Carters Products</a> started as a pill-peddling company in the latter part of the 19th century. Specifically, Carters repped its "Little Liver Pills" so hard a Southern saying spawned from the omnipresent advertisements.
Alas, the Federal Trade Commission forced the drug-group to drop the "liver" portion of the ad, claiming it was deceptive. Carter's "Little Liver Pills" became Carter's "Little Pills" in 1951, but the South doesn't really pay attention to <keyword id="29052" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="history">history</keyword>. The phrase stuck.
<h3>9. "I'm finer than frog hair split four ways."</h3>
Southerners mostly use this phrase to answer, "How are you?" Even those below the Mason-Dixon know frogs don't have hair, and the irony means to highlight just how dandy you feel.
The phrase reportedly originated in <a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fine-as-frog-hair.html">C. Davis' "Diary of 1865." </a>
<h3>10. "He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow."</h3>
On farms (not just in the South) roosters usually crow when the sun rises. Their vociferous habit wakes up the house, signaling time to work.
An extremely cocky rooster might think the sun rises simply because he crows. Similarly, an extremely cocky man might think the same when he speaks - and also that everyone should listen to him.
<h3>11. "That's about as useful as tits on a bull."</h3>
Only female dairy cows produce milk. Male cows are called bulls. And even if you could "milk anything with nipples," bulls tend to be rather ornery. Good luck with that.
<h3>12. "That thing is all catawampus."</h3>
<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/catawampus">Catawampus</a> adj: askew, awry, cater-cornered.
Lexicographers don't really know how it evolved, though. They speculate it's a colloquial perversion of "cater-corner." Variations include: catawampous, cattywampus, catty wonkus. The South isn't really big on details.
<h3>13. "He's got enough money to burn a wet mule."</h3>
In 1929, then-Governor of Louisiana <a href="http://www.hueylong.com/life-times/impeachment.php">Huey Long</a>, nicknamed "The Kingfish," tried to enact a five-cent tax on each barrel of refined oil to fund welfare programs. Naturally, Standard Oil threw a hissy fit and tried to impeach him on some fairly erroneous charges (including <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74879.html">attending a drunken party with a stripper).</a>
But Long, a good ole' boy, fought back. He reportedly said the company had offered legislators as much as $25,000 for their votes to kick him out of office - what he called "enough money to burn a wet mule."
We Northerners may not know what that means, but at least we know where it comes from.
<h3>Bonus: Bless Your Heart</h3>
Almost everyone knows Southern women drop this phrase constantly. But it might not mean what you think it means.
In reality, the phrase has little to do with religion and more to do with a passive-aggressive way to call you an idiot. Depending on your inflection, saying "bless your heart" can sting worse than any insult.

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