*By Alisha Haridasani*
It’s the most divisive question since the blue and black dress (or was it white and gold?!): Do you hear Yanny or Laurel?
Technically, the answer is "Laurel." But some people swear it's "Yanny."
The question, which is ripping the internet apart, revolves around an audio clip [reportedly](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/science/yanny-laurel.html) posted on Reddit by a student who found it on a vocabulary website when researching a school project under the word "laurel." The clip went viral, leaving many listeners questioning what they heard ー and maybe their sanity.
The discrepancy in what people hear could be due to circumstance, said Brad Story, professor of speech, language, and hearing at the University of Arizona.
“It really is going to depend on the information that you have in terms of your bias toward listening to it at that moment in time," said Story. "That’s what we call ‘top-down information’ ー trying to make sense of any kind of pattern that's present.”
The two words share very similar acoustic characteristics that your brain could selectively hear it one way or the other, he said.
The bass, frequency, and volume of the audio clip can also influence what someone hears. Some people posted videos on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/JFLivesay/status/996585941241401346) where the audio levels were adjusted, changing how the clip could be heard.
So, whatever the *technical* answer to the question is, in reality, it can be both.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/yanny-vs-laurel).
A new bill in Illinois would require potential gun buyers to reveal their public social media accounts to state police. The ACLU is now speaking out against the idea, citing privacy and bias concerns. "The things that social media would show are one's political views, perhaps one's religion, and even in some instances someone's race," Edwin Yohnka, director of communications and public policy at ACLU of Illinois, told Cheddar.
The private investigator working on behalf of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to find out how his private texts were leaked to the National Enquirer believes a "government entity" may have been involved. That explosive claim was relayed on Cheddar Friday morning by Manuel Roig-Franzia, a Washington Post reporter who interviewed Gavin de Becker, Bezos' security chief.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Feb. 8, 2019.
It's not fitness. It's life. Such is the motto of wellness brand Equinox ー which is taking that commitment to the next level with "Cycle for Survival." "At Equinox, we are a 'do good' company. We're about high-performance living and we felt that this was a cause we wanted to get involved in, " Scott Rosen, president of Equinox, told Cheddar.
Delivery has always been integral to Jimmy John's, first as a means of survival, then as a cornerstone of its business model. But today Jimmy John's is taking its push for customer loyalty one step further with a rewards program. "We're in the process. Hold on soon, it's coming," Jimmy John's CEO and President James North told Cheddar Thursday.
About 83 percent of Americans are happy in their relationships, according to a new survey by eHarmony. Grant Langston, the CEO of eHarmony, said the happiest couples are those that share in common things like income, education, and political affiliation. But power sharing is also key. "You've got to be equal, and unfortunately only about 50 percent of the couples reported having equal relationships. We've got a lot to work on there," Langston told Cheddar.
Cycle for Survival is a movement focused on beating rare cancers. Every dollar raised goes towards rare cancer research led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Equinox is a founding partner of Cycle for Survival and a huge contributor to the movement's success. Equinox President Scott Rosen joined Cheddar to celebrate hitting the $200 million fundraising mark.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019.
Low-cost airlines have succeeded by dazzling travelers with cheap tickets to popular destinations, but that strategy is growing harder to maintain for long-haul trips. "The problem is nobody's sure whether the model is sustainable," Brian Sumers, senior aviation business editor at Skift, told Cheddar Wednesday.
Lemonade, the insurance startup that uses A.I. and chatbots to pay claims within seconds, saw exponential growth in the U.S. in 2018, but the company is setting its sights on Europe for its next phase of expansion. "We've decided that if people in Berlin, and Tokyo, and New York are using Spotify, and Netflix, and Uber, why not Lemonade?" CEO and co-founder Daniel Schreiber asked in an interview on Cheddar.
