This past week was a challenging one for many Americans. It's unclear where we go from here as a country, but let's hope we figure out a way to better empathize with each other moving forward.

Enjoy the 4th. Enjoy your family. Enjoy a much needed break.

And as always...please forward IQNEWS to a friend if you're a fan.

Ever met someone you immediately knew you'd be friends with?

Was it their smile? A joke they told? Their sweet Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon tee?

According to a new study, the clincher might've been far funkier: their B.O. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel found that people with similar body odors are more likely to “click” and become fast friends.

Researchers recruited 20 same-sex besties, all of whom agreed they instantly connected upon meeting. An electronic “nose” and a group of 25 adults were used to sniff t-shirts that had been worn by each participant for a few nights.

The e-nose and human sniffers found the body odors of friends were more similar than those of random pairs. In a follow-up experiment, the research team found that 71 percent of the time, similarities in body odor predicted whether strangers would feel a positive connection.

Bottom line: we're far more similar to our butt-sniffing dogs than we thought.

Thinking about bringing your dog to work, but worried about how you'll keep tabs on it?

There’s an easy hack for this - all you need is a helium-filled balloon. Simply tie the balloon to your dog’s collar and, just like that, you have an instant dog tracking device.

As your dog meanders through the office, the balloon will float along with them, providing a visual cue that floats above all vision-blocking structures.

Here's a video that shows this tracking hack in action (featuring an adorable office corgi!).

1. Thousands of Rubik’s cubes have never been solved and never will be.
2. History classes will only get longer and harder as time goes on.
3. Fish that are caught and released are the aquatic equivalent of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens.
4. Tears are the only bodily fluid from other people that we aren’t disgusted by.
5. Mother Nature not only pre-sliced oranges, but also pre-wrapped them.

Friedrich Nietzsche: “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

Today I learned that bats eat enough pests to save the U.S. over $3 billion per year in crop damage and pesticide costs. (more here)

foofaraw [ foo-fa-raw ] - noun
a great stir or fuss over something insignificant
A foofaraw erupted at the holiday party.

Q: In Florida, it’s illegal to do what while wearing a swimsuit?
A: (see below next section)