The Checkup: America’s Strongest Weightlifter Is a Woman

• You know how folks like Michael Phelps, Apolo Ohno and Nastia Liukin make being an Olympic athlete look super glamorous? Well, if weightlifter Sarah Robles proves anything, it’s not—at least, not for the majority of athletes headed to the Olympic Games. Believe it or not, Robles, a 23-year-old from California, is actually the country’s strongest person. She beat out all American competitors—both male and female—at last year’s world championships, placing 11th overall. She can apparently lift more than 568 pounds—”that’s roughly five IKEA couches, 65 gallons of milk, or one large adult male lion,” reports BuzzFeed. But here’s the thing: Despite being ridiculously talented, Robles is barely scraping by financially; she brings in just $400 a month from U.S.A. Weightlifting, and anything else comes from donations from friends and family. (Her jam-packed training schedule makes it impossible to get a job.) Apparently, sponsorships and spokesperson gigs aren’t super easy to come by if you’re not photogenic, which is why Olympians like Phelps are able to book $1 million Mazda campaigns. And at 5’10” and 275 pounds, Robles doesn’t exactly fit the mold. Kinda sad, no? Check out her full profile over here on BuzzFeed.

• The Union of Concerned Scientists would like us to kick our meat habit, mostly because meat consumption is reeeeeally bad for the environment, according to a new study.

• There isn’t one iota about this study that’s health-related (unless we care to infer about the mental state of these people), but a recent study found that one-third of Americans believe in UFOs. Ten percent say they have personally seen a spaceship. Am I looking in the wrong places or something?