Can you run from your problems? Well, maybe. Researchers are more confident that exercise can not only alleviate some of the symptoms of depression, it might also provide some protection against getting depressed in the first place. From Gretchen Reynolds in the NYT: "The pooled results persuasively showed that exercise, especially if it is moderately strenuous, such as brisk walking or jogging, and supervised, so that people complete the entire program, has a 'large and significant effect' against depression, the authors wrote. People's mental health tended to demonstrably improve if they were physically active." I've always argued there is a strong mind/body connection. (It's called the neck.)

"American industry is more highly concentrated than at any time since the gilded age. Need a pharmacy? Americans have two main choices. A plane ticket? Four major airlines. They have four choices to buy cell phone service. Soon one company will sell more than a quarter of the quaffs of beer around the world." So why do we keep approving so many mega-mergers? You might be thinking of lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists. But there's another group to add to that list. Professors. No one ever went into academia for the money. But that doesn't mean they didn't find some when they got there. ProPublica introduces you to the professors who make more than a thousand bucks an hour peddling mega-mergers.

One side has most of the land. The other side has most of the population. And the result is a seriously divided America. The NYT tweaks the map to help you visualize the two Americas.

+ "Even though statewide levels of vaccinations remain high, at over 98 percent, what concerns public health officials are the growing clusters of geographic areas with high rates of unvaccinated children." Geography is everything, it seems. Across Texas, there are growing clusters of unvaccinated children.

+ LA Times: There's another type of rural/urban divide in America: Teens having babies.

+ Also from the NYT: Political divide splits relationships — and Thanksgiving, too. It's definitely going to be tense at my house when the raging leftists face off against the bleeding heart liberals.

"The sheer size of the impact of a meme like the Ice Bucket Challenge was the first big indication that Facebook had drastically changed the structure of popular culture. Two years later, we are finally beginning to see the consequences of this all around the world." Buzzfeed: This Is How Facebook Is Radicalizing You.

+ "American News, which on Tuesday posted stories like 'Michelle Obama Exposed for the Pervert She Really Is' (the website calls her Moochelle in its posts), 'The View Is About to Get Shut Down,' and 'BREAKING: Hillary Clinton to Be Indicted… Your Prayers Have Been Answered,' has 700,000 more subscribers than The Washington Post on Facebook." Ben Collins spends 48 Hours in Facebook's Unreality.

+ And there's this: Fake news is more viral than real news.

+ Ben Thompson: Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

+ Molly McHugh on how we built our bubble: "Experts are worried we won't be able to get ourselves out of this cycle -- that the level of discourse happening on social media is, in the most internet-friendly terms, a dumpster fire from which there's no escaping."

+ Twitter has suspended a bunch of alt-right accounts as it looks to do more to stem the rise of hate speech on the service.

Fake news spreading on one social network. Raging hate is being spewed on another. The group of people least surprised by these trends are journalists, who have long seen a perfect storm of lies and vitriol headed in their direction. And predictably, a lot of the attacks are antisemitic.

+ Vox: Anti-Semitic propaganda was mailed to me at my home. This is not normal.

+ There are many troubling conflicts in 2016 America, and one of them that bothers me most is the split between the working class and journalists. Working journalists are working class America. And if journalism is devalued, then the biggest losers will be those who need its protection the most. This is my take on an issue that hits very close to home. Divided We Brawl.

"The manufacturers know these machines are addictive and do their best to make them addictive so they can make more money. This isn't negligence. It's intentional." The Atlantic on how casinos enable gambling addicts. (Some of the same techniques are also being deployed by those who make the technology you're looking at right now.)

"Virtual sex will be so much better than real world sex that couples in the real world that want to have sex will go to their separate locations to have sex.'" IRL sex will be reserved for fetishists ... who get off on the authenticity of it." From Vocativ: Westworld is inspiring all sorts of theorizing about the morality of sexbots, but virtual reality sex is already here. (And yet, I still carve out time in my day to find interesting stories for you to read.)

The two most voracious readers of fiction that I know are my wife, and our good friend Leila. They are the top book recommenders in our social circle (and our school's book fair). So for your reading pleasure: Here are the top 20 books in fiction in 2016 so far. (My wife's nightstand is covered with a pile of books halfway to the ceiling. My nightstand has a vape and a remote control.)

"There were doctors at the time who suggested he might never talk, that reading and writing were out of the question, that foster care was an option. His parents remember days when he was content simply to spin for long periods of time in one place. He was drawn to the electricity in exit signs. If he was left alone for a moment, he would bolt. He connected to the world by solving puzzles." ESPN on the kid who grew up to be one of the best pinball players in the world.

According to recent research, pigs can be optimists or pessimists, depending on personality and mood. (I'm guessing the smell of bacon is a key pessimism indicator.)

+ Post-truth named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries.

+ This is a local story. But all of us can relate: They finally arrested the airhorn guy of El Segundo.

+ Bob Dylan will not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony. (No word on whether he'll send a representative to mumble unintelligibly on his behalf...)