There's one thing we learned for sure during the vice presidential debate: Mike Pence does not follow Donald Trump on Twitter. The general consensus is reflected in these headlines. From WaPo: Pence wins, Trump loses in vice-presidential debate. From Vox: Mike Pence won the debate by throwing Donald Trump under the bus. From The Atlantic: Mike Pence Pretends That Trump Never Happened. From The New Yorker: Everybody won at the vice-presidential debate, except Donald Trump. OK, The Onion went with a slightly different angle: Moderator Reminds Vice Presidential Debate Audience To Remain Silent When Exiting Early.

+ Tim Kaine interrupted Pence 72 times. And Pence left the NYT wondering how you fact-check a headshake.

+ Aside from the theatrics and showmanship, there was a decent discussion of some actual issues. But as a member of the media, I'm not allowed to focus on those (at least that seems to be the rule). Here are some of the highlights.

There are plenty of people in tech and life sciences who think we are only at the beginning when it comes to extending life expectancy, and that even achieving immortality is a longshot possibility. But a new paper suggests we may be nearing a lifespan limit. So what's the number? About 115 years old. (I hope we can push it at least a few years longer than that. I'm a little behind on my novel.)

"There are no doctors left in Syria and the need for medical help there is sometimes beyond compre­hension. It's odd to think that this has become normal life for me. It's normal to work under these conditions, to be threatened with arrest on one side and kidnap on the other, to have to conduct major surgery underground and constantly see buildings around us reduced to rubble. In the last year alone our hospital was targeted five times. That's become normal." The daily battle to save lives in Aleppo.

+ "We thought we had an idea of what these men and women went through. We were definitely taken aback by just how horrendous the work they do is." A Netflix documentary follows three volunteers in Syria's group known as the White Helmets.

Thousands of people are being evacuated as Hurricane Matthew works its way towards the east coast. Here's a look at some of damage the storm caused in Haiti.

+ How big is Matthew? NASA captured some footage from space. And the answer is, really big.

"During an F.B.I. raid of his house, agents seized documents and digital information stored on electronic devices. A large percentage of the materials found in his house and car contained highly classified information." According to the NYT, an N.S.A. contractor has been arrested for attempting a potentially Snowden-like theft of secrets.

+ BuzzFeed was vandalized by a hacking group after exposing an alleged member. This is going to be a big issue for media outlets. There are plenty of hackers who don't want certain information published. And it's unclear that publishers have the technological fire-power to stand up to them.

It survived the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But now, global trade agreements could present its most existential threat. The Atlantic's Oluwakemi Aladesuyi on the story of globalization, as told through the experiences of a pickle.

"They could slip inside the human body to deliver drugs from within -- for instance, applying pharmaceuticals directly to cancer cells. This field of nanotechnology could also yield applications in the design of smart materials." The Nobel prize in chemistry went to researchers working on the design and synthesis of machines a thousand times thinner than a strand of hair. (And I thought it was hard to keep track of my Apple TV remote...)

"Cultural transmission does not require the high cognitive sophistication specific to humans, nor is it a distinctive feature of humans." Scientists were able to train bees to pull on strings in order to get a reward. Then other bees learned the behavior from the bees that had been trained by humans.

+ Trained pigeons can tell the difference between the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet. From Mental Floss, here's a selection of incredible animal facts.

"It's possible to create a huge tech company without taking venture capital, and without spending far beyond your means. It's possible, in other words, to start a tech company that runs more like a normal business than a debt-fueled rocket ship careening out of control. Believe it or not, start-ups don't even have to be headquartered in San Francisco or Silicon Valley." The NYT's Farhad Manjoo on the rise of MailChimp which got caught in the perfect storm of the resurgence of newsletters, and an excellent product. What this article doesn't mention is that I'm by far Mailchimp's favorite customer, and by extension, so are you.

"Social media plays a pivotal role in spreading these rumor-panics which travel around the globe in the blink of an eye. They are part of a greater moral panic about the fear of strangers and terrorists in an increasingly urban, impersonal, and unpredictable world." (It's either that or the big red noses.) The Guardian's Matthew Teague tracks the false clown sightings back to patient zero. This was the day it all began.

+ Why are left-handers so much more rare? And can you be left-eared?

+ Ten years after the show first aired, The Ringer imagines what's going on with the characters from Friday Night Lights. (Riggins is still a total hunk.)