Cracked open the summer issue of Y Magazine yet? Don’t miss the cover story all about BYU grad Mark Rober, the BYU grad and NASA engineer turned YouTube phenom who is making the internet better, one prank at a time. Be sure to see where Rober’s recent world record domino-setting build ranks in this countdown of the five feats that gave him the biggest fits.

Children aren’t brutally honest, explains Dorie Haws, head teacher at the BYU Child and Family Studies Lab. They’re just calling it how they see it. Taking her cue from Mr. Rogers, Haws has found that learning to listen and really understand children leads to inspiration.

In a surprise reprise of Spectacular! from a decade ago, Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell is back, headlining two shows at the BYU Marriott Center on Oct. 7 and 8. This event is part of a week of BYU Homecoming celebrations honoring alumni as well as 50 years of arts, sports, and devotionals in the BYU Marriott Center. Spectacular! will also showcase many renowned BYU performing arts groups. Presale tickets are available now by entering promo code Marriott50.

Souvenirs from “Mormon Hill,” Parisian hats, and mulberry trees—these are just a few of the diverse items advertised in the Woman’s Exponent. Senior librarian Elizabeth Smart and digital humanities professor Jeremy Browne have created a database of 4,000 ads from the popular magazine for 19th-century Utah frontierswomen. Browne says studying the ads “is a bit like digging through the trash because it’s really the part of history that was never meant to be a historical record.” But one woman’s trash is this man’s treasure. “The ads have a certain authenticity to them that we don’t get elsewhere,” he says.

After BYUSA president Paul Victor spun a plate on his finger for 2 hours, 17 minutes, and 24 seconds to set a new Guinness World Record, he said he mostly felt relief. Over two years he had attempted to break the record multiple times but ran into problems with plates, cameras, and people. Read what movies Victor and his witnesses watched to pass the time and what his experiences taught him about perseverance.

In a July 20 devotional address, Lisa Valentine Clark, BYUradio host of The Lisa Show, shared how decades of improv work have taught her how to handle unexpected challenges in life and turn them into triumphs. Watch or listen to her inspiring speech, then read this heart-warming feature about how Lisa and her late husband, Christopher, kept laughing through their tears.

“A dream is a wish your heart makes.” New BYU research discovered that moments like this from Disney’s Cinderella and other parts of princess culture encourage boys to support the dreams and equal treatment of women. In a six-year-long study, BYU family-life professor Sarah Coyne found that children who engaged with princess culture were more likely to later hold progressive views about women.

“The music, the outfits, the location . . . what a dynamic video! Noteworthy is on fire this year!” Fans on YouTube and social media are raving about BYU Noteworthy’s a cappella cover of “Castles” (by Freya Ridings).

Ancient, agile, iridescent, and predatory. But they mostly eat mosquitoes. What’s not to like? To map the history of dragonflies and damselflies—Earth’s oldest flying insects—the National Science Foundation granted $2.3 million to a BYU life-sciences team. Traveling the world to chart more than 6,300 dragonfly species and build an extensive tree of life out of DNA data, the researchers will document the evolution of the insects and highlight their role as a global bioindicator of healthy freshwater systems.