How families can reduce clothing waste and help the environment, the real medieval struggle that inspired "House of the Dragon," and more.

Lex Ashcroft's reads

A new food rating system could help you cut through health guidelines. As consumers, we are bombarded by health advice in various forms. While being highly publicized, many studies are not well understood, leading researchers to develop a rating system to help consumers and policymakers navigate conflicting health guidance. Writing for The Conversation, Aleksander Aravkin and his co-authors detail how this new tool can help consumers easily identify the level of harm or protection of a specific behavior, and assess how strong the evidence is to support it by using risk-outcome pairs.

How families can reduce clothing waste and help the environment. The fashion industry's effects on the environment have been getting more attention recently. While resale clothing sites such as ThredUp have become popular with younger adults, there are also companies that focus solely on buying, swapping, and reselling children's items, as they outgrow things faster. Writing for the Washington Post, Lavonne Roberts offers tips from experts on family eco-friendly living, including decluttering before purchasing new items, learning how to mend clothing, and joining local "buy nothing" swap groups.

Allie Rudin's reads

Why haunted houses and horror movies make us happy. From terrifying video games to true-crime podcasts and even infant games of peek-a-boo, "recreational fear" as researchers call it, is everywhere. It seems unlikely that humans enjoy—and even seek out—being scared, yet this "paradox of horror" is based on the experience of an adrenaline rush and the opportunity to learn about and prepare for scary situations in safety. Writing for the Washington Post's "Brain Matters," Richard Sima breaks down the three types of horror fans and provides advice for those wanting to find the fun in fear.

The real medieval struggle over a female ruler that inspired 'House of the Dragon.' Remove the dragons in HBO's "House of the Dragon," move the story to 12th century England, and the show becomes a surprisingly accurate adaptation of a historical period known as the Anarchy. Both conflicts begin when a ruler names his teenage daughter as heir—an unprecedented move in England and Westeros at the time. Author George R. R. Martin looked to this dynastic succession struggle when writing about the fictional Targaryens, and historian David Routt explains for The Conversation how the enduring story of Empress Matilda gives us insight into medieval English society.