6,000 people will receive a livable salary just for existing. And you could be next.

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What if we paid everyone a basic, bare-minimum livable wage — in exchange for absolutely nothing?

Nothing fancy, mind you; you'd still have to work in order to afford the finer things in life. But enough to cover food, housing, health care, and other essentials without all the frills.

That's the fundamental concept behind universal basic income (UBI), an economic model that's garnered support from all across the political spectrum.

Lose your job? Too overworked to take those higher education courses you wanted? Scared to launch that company you've always wanted to start? UBI would have your back. Instead of worrying about how to make ends meet, everyone — regardless of their income — would have their basic needs taken care of, freeing them up to actually, you know, positively contribute to society in whatever way that they saw fit.

Photo by Stefan Bohrer/Flickr.

It might sound ridiculous. It might seem impossible. But it's happening as we speak.

UBI has already been or is currently being tested in places like Germany, Finland, Namibia, and Canada. And those experiments have all yielded some pretty remarkable evidence in favor of this radical idea.

Contrary to popular assumptions, free money didn't turn people into lazy drunks. Sure, some of them worked a little less — like 5-7% fewer hours on average. But they also invested more time, money, and energy into education and entrepreneurship, and their overall happiness vastly improved.

Photo by Heikki Saukkomaa/Getty Images.

But most of these experiments only lasted for a couple of years at best. No one's ever tracked the long-term impact of UBI ... until now.

The nonprofit GiveDirectly just announced a comprehensive plan to study the effects of UBI through a decade-plus social experiment.

"We’ve spent much of the past decade delivering cash transfers to the extremely poor through GiveDirectly, but have never structured the transfers exactly this way: universal, long-term, and sufficient to meet basic needs," GiveDirectly Chairman Michael Faye and Director Paul Niehaus wrote in an article for Slate. "And that’s the point — nobody has and we think now is the time to try."

If all goes according to plan, GiveDirectly will provide 6,000 people in a Kenyan village with a universal basic income for the next 10-15 years. The exact number all depends on how much money they can raise.

Photo by Tony Karumba/Stringer/Getty Images.

Why Kenya? Because most Kenyans already live on the equivalent of less than $1 a day.

As such, GiveDirectly expects the total project costs to run around $30 million, less than 10% of which will go to general administrative costs.

Nothing fancy here. Just the bare minimum that someone would need to live.

A similar initiative in a developed country would cost more than a billion dollars. And unfortunately, that's not a practical price to pay for an experimental program — even one that, if successful, could improve living conditions for everyone across the board.

Photo by Tony Karumba/Stringer/Getty Images.

But that question of cost does tend to pop up pretty quickly in conversations around UBI.

It's why some people are skeptical about the idea from the start. It's probably why no one's attempted such a grandiose plan as GiveDirectly until now. And that's exactly why their mission is so significant.

For now, GiveDirectly is soliciting donations to provide these 6,000 Kenyans with their salaries. Other economists have suggested funding UBI through standard taxes, the same way we fund our current social programs; others have pointed out that the potential income from untaxed loopholes for the wealthy would be more than enough to cover the cost.

Photo by Tony Karumba/Stringer/Getty Images.

The truth is, there are some things that we just can't know until we try — and that's why GiveDirectly's new initiative is so exciting.

The theoretical evidence all looks to be in favor of a universal basic income, but there are still some things that can't be solved on paper until they're put into action.

Worst-case scenario? GiveDirectly improves the lives of 6,000 Kenyans for a while. Best case? In 15-20 years, someone could be paying you to live as well.

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This Australian guy bought 300 charter buses for an incredible reason.

100,000 homeless folks. 300 busses. And one simple solution.

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In 1993, Simon Rowe hit hard times, and the only place he had to sleep at night was his car.

Two decades later, and no longer homeless, Rowe started looking for a way to give people who are homeless in Melbourne, Australia — like he had been — a place to lay their heads at night.

He explored a bunch of options, and eventually he decided to buy a charter bus, which he’s calling the Sleep Bus.

Rowe in his first bus. All photos from Sleep Bus, used with permission.

Rowe plans to use a fleet of more than 300 buses to aid Australia’s struggling homeless population.

Over 100,000 people are homeless in Australia right now, and more than 6,000 don’t have a place to sleep. Sleep Bus will hopefully provide these folks with private temporary living spaces to rest while they get on their feet again.

Image by Sleep Bus, used with permission.

To fund his passion project, Simon set up a GoFundMe campaign to scrounge up the funds for his first bus.

Within a month’s time, the campaign received donations from all across the globe. Wildly, they raised not only enough money for the first bus, but they're very close to fully funding their pilot program too, which Simon plans to launch in June 2016.

Sleep Bus is similar to a shelter, but with some key differences.

The Sleep Bus is designed to give every occupant their own personal space. Every bus will have 22 sleep pods, two toilets, a personal locker for each guest, eight kennels for animals, and a security system.

Parents will also be given control over the lock of their children’s pods, and there will be an intercom system between them. The bus’s mobility will also allow it to set up camp wherever people who are homeless congregate, as homeless populations tend to change with the seasons.

As for the pods, they’re set up more like hotel rooms than shelters — and that’s a good thing.

Each pod will be outfitted with its own freshly washed linens, a charging station for electronics, a door with a lock that each guest will have control over, climate control, and a television. In addition to regular programming, the TVs in the pods will have a special channel running ads for local support services.

“The TV is strategic, the TV is to help people stay calm, stay quiet ... but it’s also about connection as well,” Rowe explained. “It’s for that connection — to catch up on the news, or shows they used to watch, or to find out what’s happening in the world that they may have missed. To start them thinking on the path out of homelessness.”

But a place to sleep is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle that is homelessness.

Rowe acknowledges that Sleep Bus is just one solution to one problem for people who are homeless. They also need clothing, food, somewhere to shower, a pathway to permanent shelter, and — as Rowe pointed out — hygiene products for women. “As a man, I’d never thought of that before,” he admitted.

But he also hopes that the buses will be a good place to start, especially because a good night’s rest is a stepping stone toward aiding the even bigger issue of mental illness among the homeless.

Some reports indicate that in Australia up to 85% of folks without a home suffer from severe mental illness. Lack of sleep tends to make existing mental health conditions worse, and some symptoms of mental health problems can be alleviated by sleep. This makes resources like the Sleep Bus an important piece in solving the problem that is homelessness.

Sleep Bus has a lot of potential — but it all starts with that first bus.

There’s still a lot of work to do until the first buses launch in June, but that hasn’t deterred Rowe in the slightest. In fact, the short timeline seems to have energized him.

"Perhaps a young lad has problems with mom and dad, ends up out on the street,” Rowe said, "We'll catch this person. They won't fall deeper into the cycle of homelessness."

Simon hard at work converting his new bus into a Sleep Bus.

Rowe's unique idea for helping people "sleeping rough" on the streets is one filled with hope, and it has resonated with thousands of people already.

If you're interested in learning more and potentially helping Sleep Bus, you can consider donating on Rowe's GoFundMe page.

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All photos and images from Sleep Bus, used with permission.

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A woman tests out mental health advice she finds on the internet. All of it.

Self-help lists are great. Seeing them in action? Even better.

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There's no shortage of self-help lists out there on the internet (and even this website). What's interesting, however, is that many of us don't actually get to see the suggestions in action.

So New Zealand woman Beth Humphrey came up with something a little different — the Great Mental Health Experiment.

All GIFs from My Beth Friend/YouTube.

Here's how it works: Every week, Beth takes a tip designed to reduce stress, take care of yourself, and just generally exist, and she puts it to the test.

And the best part? She's capturing it all on camera.

"I think people love to learn new things, but they want to learn in a way that is fun, personal, and easy to digest," she said. "I think the reason people are so drawn to these kinds of videos is that they are short, interesting, and to the point."

When it comes to mental health, your mileage may vary — and Beth understands that.

There's no one-size-fits-all fix for things like depression, anxiety, and other forms of mental illness. For some, the answers may lie in pharmaceuticals; for others, diet or exercise. That's part of what makes Beth's series so interesting: It's her trying to figure out what works for her.

"All the reactions, feelings, and reflections are all me! I'm not trying to sell these tips, but rather, testing them and giving my opinion," she says. "My experience will be different to someone else's, and that's cool!"

For example, the first video in the series follows Beth as she sees how something like baking affects her mood.

Other videos show her doing distress tolerance exercises...

...getting more sleep ...

...and experimenting a bit with animal therapy — all with varying levels of success (and that's kind of the point).

These types of open discussions help fight some of the stigma that goes along with addressing mental health issues and being willing to seek help.

And when it comes to her videos, Beth hopes to open up that gateway of conversation between friends, family, and medical professionals.

"I believe that my videos normalize mental health and create a healthy way to have conversation[s], bring awareness and teach new skills for those who may be struggling. Even if that’s just simply, 'Hey, I’m here, I know what you are going through, and here’s some things that might help.'"

It's an exercise in building empathy.

"So many people still believe that asking for help means you are soft or weak," she says. "And my response to that is: Be vulnerable! Talking about your feelings is not something to be ashamed of."

Still, that stigma exists. In 1996, a survey conducted by the National Mental Health Association found that 54% of people "think of depression as a sign of personal or emotional weakness." Years later, survey numbers are still pretty (no pun intended) depressing.

While Beth's Great Mental Health Experiment rolls on (check out her channel every Tuesday for a new episode), you can start your very own version.

No, maybe you won't gather a crew and document this on video (you're certainly welcome to, though!), but you can take some tips and put them into action.

For example, here's a great list of four tips for calming down. Here's a list of 13 things to do if someone you love lives with depression. Here's one with six top-notch tips for getting yourself out of a creative rut. And here's a list of three ways to become a more confident person.

Will everything on any of those lists work for you? Probably not. Still, if you find one thing that helps make your life less stressful and more enjoyable, isn't it all worth it?

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Genevieve's dad told her to take risks. When he got sick, she took her biggest one yet.

When life hands you challenges, make granola.

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When Genevieve Lee's father had a heart attack, it made her question everything — even the food they ate together.

All images by SheMeansBusiness/Facebook, used with permission.

Before his heart attack and triple bypass surgery, Genevieve's family never thought too much about what they ate. While her mother is a good cook, their meals were supplemented with highly processed food and loaded with extra sugar, salt, and preservatives. Delicious, but not the best idea for a diabetic recovering from major heart surgery.

With her dad on two months of bed rest, Genevieve took a leave of absence from her film editing job to care for him, immersing herself in learning to cook whole-food versions of his favorite meals. One of the biggest challenges was finding a nutrient-rich, low-sugar replacement for the cereal he liked to snack on throughout the day.

She decided on homemade granola. It was an instant hit.

Helping her father change his diet changed her life. And her career path.

Once Genevieve started making healthy food, she couldn't stop. Soon her friends were receiving gifts of homemade granola during the holidays. Her dad saw her enthusiasm and encouraged her to take the next logical step: If you like it so much, why not sell it?

"My initial challenge is that I wasn't a risk-taker. Leaving a comfortable job with decent pay was really daunting. After giving much thought and talking to my dad, he gave me this advice: He said, 'Don't worry so much. Just do it. Things will sort of work out.'"
— Genevieve Lee

With just $500 in seed money, Genevieve started small. She sold her granola at farmers markets, then online. Her family helped every step of the way, even spending afternoons portioning and labeling packages.

Now, four years in, The Edible Company has a mail-order program, a Singapore storefront, and a strong social media presence — even if teaching people what granola is can sometimes be a challenge.

"People have a very sweet and savory tooth here, and most healthier options of anything is neither of that. So the first buy in is always our popular Coconut Gula Melaka flavor. It's connectable, sweeter, and has the essence of a Southeast Asian flavor. All of our products are gently sweetened, but I still get people who asked me to make it sweeter. I'm standing my ground."
— Genevieve Lee

In a 2014 interview, Genevieve acknowledged that her company would have failed immediately had she started it 10 years ago. Products like granola and muesli are now becoming mainstream in Singapore — and social media has played a big part in that.

There are 3.5 million active Facebook users in Singapore, and mentions from famous, popular users can make a big difference for a small business like Genevieve's.

"Now, social media makes all the difference. If a friend who has 24,000 followers posts a photo of my granola, I'll get 20 to 30 new followers and lots of people asking where to buy it within a few hours," she told an interviewer last year.

Many entrepreneurs sacrifice their personal relationships when they start their businesses. Genevieve has worked hard to be the exception.

She makes a point of carving out time in her schedule to spend with family, and she never works on Sundays. It's a refreshingly healthy approach. More than a decade after the health scare that started it all, Genevieve's father — and the business he convinced her to start — are doing well. And her family has never been stronger — even as they prepare to get a little larger next month when Genevieve and her husband welcome their first child.

Being an entrepreneur and a new mom will be a huge challenge, but Genevieve is ready for whatever happens.

"Running a business alone is one tough journey. Every thing and every day is a challenge. What keeps me going is that I refuse to give up on this dream until I have exhausted all possible options. I don't want to live my life with regrets."

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Hertha Marks Ayrton was a total badass. Google just honored her in an awesome way.

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Never heard of Hertha Marks Ayrton? That's OK. Neither had I. But let me tell you why I'll definitely be remembering her.

Ayrton would have been 162 today, so Google decided to honor her with a Doodle designed by artist Lydia Nichols.

Image from Google.com

Ayrton was the first woman to present a scientific finding to the esteemed British Royal Society, way back in 1904.

A painting of Ayrton. Image from Mme. Darmesteter/Wikimedia Commons.

This is the same society that heard presenters like Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday (one of the great founders of modern electric knowledge).

Ayrton's work was "The Origin and Growth of Ripple-mark," which helped explain ripple marks, those weird lines on beaches.

Image from Margaret W. Carruthers/Flickr.

If that seems silly, this is no eighth-grade science experiment. Fluid dynamics is incredibly weird and difficult, but Ayrton was a powerhouse of math and physics knowledge. Her discovery helped us better understand how fluids like air and water move, which affects things from water delivery to electric turbine design.

This wasn't Ayrton's only contribution to science.

Image from A. Rintel/Wikimedia Commons.

At the turn of the century, a new form of lighting had hit Britain: the electric arc lamp. The lights were bright and dependable but also had a weird tendency to hiss when they were turned on.

Well, it was Ayrton who figured out what that noise was. In 1899, she presented a paper, "The Hissing of the Electric Arc," to Britain's Institute of Electrical Engineers. She explained that the noise was from craters forming in the lamp's carbon rods. Two days later, they elected her as their first female member.

Unfortunately, the scientific community sometimes tried to hold her back because of her gender.

In 1901, she wrote another paper about electric arcs and tried to present it to the Royal Society. But the society had a man present her work instead.

"An error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat," she once said — a quote that I think might resonate with a lot of other female scientists.

Nevertheless, Ayrton continued to make significant contributions to electrical engineering.

She was never one to let people hold her back because of her gender, though. She was a keen supporter of women's suffrage in England.

A suffrage meeting in England circa 1908. Image from The New York Times/Wikimedia Commons.

She took part in a lot of marches and demonstrations, was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, and either founded or help lead many other suffrage societies. She also opened her home to women who had been jailed after demonstrations and hunger strikes.

She was also a prolific inventor, and her inventions saved lives in World War I.

Image from Ernest Brooks/Wikimedia Commons.

By the time she died, she had 26 different patents under her belt. In 1915, Ayrton invented a fan that saved soldiers from the poisonous gas weapons of World War I.

Over 100,000 fans were sent to the battlefield.

Hertha Marks Ayrton was an awesome engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and proponent of women's suffrage.

It kind of sucks that more people haven’t heard of her and that we needed a Google Doodle to find out about her. But it's still pretty powerful to see a big, public reminder of the huge number of amazing women who have had an impact on our world.

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This is what it's really like to go to the gym as a fat person.

How the gym exposes a challenging double-bind of attitudes around fatness.

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I love the feeling of my beating heart — the rush of blood in my face and limbs, the scrape of heavy breath in my lungs, the pulsing in my fingertips.

I love to feel sweat gather in the fine hairs at my temples, neck. The bright colors of workout clothes and the rhythmic throb of blood in my veins are a celebration of the life in my lungs.

Photo via iStock.

I learned to swim at a young age, joining a swim team in grade school and middle school. I never minded being the fattest kid on the team because swimming made me feel so free and exhilarated. I swam the butterfly, a complicated stroke with a precise momentum, in which my fat body proved a surprising asset. I felt my heartbeat in every inch of my body, and I loved it.

Things changed in high school, when our whole class took fitness tests at the same time, the gym becoming a tiny stage packed with players and too much audience.

In locker rooms, beyond the earshot of adults, classmates would talk endlessly about each other’s personal bests and bodies. Those conversations were a warning shot. I never heard my body discussed, but there was the caution: It would be.

The worst test was running the mile, and the inevitability of harsh judgment that came with it. I dreaded the obviousness of being the fattest kid, the cliché of coming in last. I prided myself on being a high achiever and felt overwhelmed with shame at being seen by all of my peers doing something at which I was so inadequate. After everyone else had finished, I was still there, the last of the last, keeping everyone else from going home for the day. Classmates watched as my reddened face contorted with embarrassment and determination, willing my stubborn body through its final lap.

My brain would overheat and sputter with dread and panic for days leading up to The Mile.

Already an anxious kid, my brain would overheat and sputter with dread and panic for days leading up to The Mile. The night before was often sleepless. Hot, frenzied tears would sear my face while my mother offered comfort. Imagine when it’s over, how free you’ll feel, knowing you don’t have to do it for another six months. Think of how relieved you’ll be. Think of everything else that you love so dearly.

It took me years to rediscover my love of movement and strength.

Today, I walk in the city, run in parks, hike in mountains, and swim on the rare occasion I have access to a private pool. But I don’t go to gyms.

“GOOD FOR YOU!”

I was at the gym on my first day of a trial membership.

I was on the elliptical with my headphones in and my eyes closed, willing the world away. People, problems, noise, and challenge all slipped into the ether, disappearing in a cloud of breath and fast-paced music. Suddenly, a piercing interruption.

“GOOD FOR YOU!”

I opened my eyes to see a stranger standing before me, face to face. She smiled with too much encouragement, the way adults do when children learn a basic skill for the first time. I felt conspicuous, the recipient of too much unwanted and unwelcome attention. I forced a weak smile and nodded, waiting for her to leave.

I looked around. No one else was talking to anyone they didn’t know. One other patron stared at me, his face contorted with unchecked disgust.

Photo via iStock.

Suddenly, I was back in high school, the last huffing, puffing fat kid to finish the mile. The size of my body felt so obvious. It felt piteous because it was pitied, disgusting because it elicited disgust. I walked into the gym feeling fine, even good. I walked out feeling ashamed, small, embarrassed by my own audacity.

Going to the gym as a fat person is a ropes course of social cues — little signals that I’m unwanted or, at best, unexpected.

Like an uninvited party guest who can’t take the hint. Would you like something to drink? We don’t have much left.

The gym exposes a challenging double-bind of attitudes around fatness. Even doing what I’m expected to do — working out — I’m still met with sidelong glances and open gawking, reminders that I’m unwelcome and unwanted. Even in the place I’m supposed to be, I can’t find respite.

As a fat person, I’m constantly bombarded with messages telling me that my job is to spend all of my time and energy changing my body, ever reducing it, until it is the right shape and size, until it moves the right way and says the right thing; until I am confident but not conceited, apologetic but not sad.

This is an impossible standard that rejects nearly all of us. But the gravitational pull of beauty standards is so strong that we are pulled into their orbit.

We all keep trying, keep striving, keep failing. We don’t lose as much weight as we thought, or we don’t lose it in the right places. Our bodies remain stubborn and untamed, unbending to our forceful will. But still, we try. We try new diets, new workouts, new pills. We spend money, time, effort. And every time something doesn’t work, it calls up all of our past defeats. Over time, those failures start to feel like who we are. They ferment, souring into shame.

Photo via iStock.

When any of us goes to the gym, it can call up all of that shame, hurt, and anger at ourselves for our perceived shortcomings. But when I show up, I become an effigy for all of that angst. I suddenly start to feel like a high schooler again at the gym, awkward and ashamed. Because in that environment, so many of us are suddenly awash in insecurity, focused on performing and judging. Even in a gym, the only bodies we can accept are the ones that are already perfect.

When I work out, I don’t do it to fit an impossible and exclusive standard.

I do it to clear my head. I do it to feel vitality, the brightness of knowing just how alive I can be. I do it to take care of a body that takes care of me.

But to go to a gym, I’ve also got to brave a culture that’s borne of insecurity, perfectionism and the lack of it. There’s no room for more, better, improvement. There’s no room for getting stronger, breathing easier, goals other than weight loss. There’s only room for hunger, lack, insecurity and shame.

I’ve had enough insecurity and shame. Instead of chasing a mirage my body will never be, I focus on making it strong. I attend to the many measures of health that shame conquers and flattens. I take long hikes and runs to clear my cluttered mind. I find safe places to swim, to feel the power of my body, the waves it can make. I return to that simple, glorious feeling of my sturdy heart pumping blood brightly through my veins.

Photo via iStock.

I have known enough shame. Today, I choose abundance and confidence. I choose nuance and self-determination. I choose strength.

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Thumbnail image via iStock.

The author behind Your Fat Friend has asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns over threats of violence she has received in response to her writing.

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19 fascinating pictures to remind us what polio used to look like.

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My dad had weird feet.

He was born in 1942, and when he was just a few years old, he caught polio. He survived the disease, but it affected the way his legs and feet grew — one foot was always a shoe size or two smaller than the other one. I remember being fascinated by them when I was little.

Though polio affected my father, I myself have never been in danger of contracting it.

In fact, the disease has disappeared completely from the United States, and we're incredibly close to eliminating it worldwide.

But as much as we should celebrate its passing, we should also remember what it was like when polio affected people everywhere. And though these photos may be somber, they should also give us hope; they prove that we can overcome the worst obstacles and most pernicious infections. After all, we've done it before.

Check out these photos of what polio looked like when my dad was a kid.

Polio was a scourge. It could affect anyone. But it preyed most heavily on children.

A child paralyzed by polio in 1947. Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images.

A young patient getting fit with a respirator in 1955. Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images.

Polio's actually a lot older than my father was. We even have paintings of it from ancient Egypt.

This over-3,300-year-old Egyptian stele is thought to depict a polio victim. Image via Deutsches Grünes Kreuz/Wikimedia Commons.

For most of that time, polio was content to remain quiet.

But in the 19th and 20th centuries, it became a killer. In 1952, an outbreak killed over 3,000 people and paralyzed over 21,000 in the U.S. alone.

Photo from Douglas Grundy/Three Lions/Getty Images.

Polio is a virus passed mostly through contaminated food and water. And as long as we humans were spread out, it never got the momentum to really become a problem. But as cities grew and, ironically, better sanitation came about and removed some of our natural exposure to it, polio suddenly found a weak spot in our defenses.

Children were most at risk of contracting the virus – hence one of its common names: infantile paralysis.

Photo by Sonnee Gottlieb/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In most cases, it's either harmless or mild, like a case of the flu. But in some people, polio can cause serious, sometimes permanent paralysis.

A paralyzed kid at London's Queen Mary's Hospital in 1947. Photo by George Konig/Keystone Features/Getty Images.

If the virus ends up in the central nervous system, it interrupts our body's ability to communicate with our muscles, causing paralysis. And if the paralysis lasts for a long time, the muscles themselves can start to waste away, a process known as atrophy.

This is already bad, but there's one more cruel twist to the disease. If a child is the one who gets paralyzed, the muscle atrophy can end up affecting the way their bones grow. That's what happened with my dad and why his feet looked so weird.

If the diaphragm was paralyzed, patients would need respirators to be able to breathe. Some respirators were portable, like this one.

A portable respirator from 1955. Photo by Hans Meyer/BIPs/Getty Images.

For a given value of "portable."

Others, like the iron lung, effectively trapped you inside.

An iron lung in 1938. Photo from London Express/Getty Images.

If you did recover, you may have still needed regular physical therapy to strengthen the atrophied muscles. Aquatic therapy was popular.

Photo by Juliette Lasserre/BIPs/Getty Images.

At its height, polio was one of the great public specters. People were terrified of it. Public pools were closed in a misguided effort to stop the spread. Houses were quarantined.

A board of health warning circa 1910. Image from National Library of Medicine/Wikimedia Commons.

There were public health campaigns and donation drives to help fuel research, like the March of Dimes.

A cartoon from 1943. Image from U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons.

Still, nobody seemed safe. Even President Franklin Roosevelt had it, although he was careful about hiding his paralysis from the outside world.

A rare photograph of FDR in his wheelchair. Image from Margaret Suckley/Wikimedia Commons.

It was one of the great scourges of its time.

Then, in the early 1950s, Jonas Salk invented the first polio vaccine.

Photo by Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Salk was a researcher and virologist who joined the fight against polio in the late 1940s. Initially tasked with identifying different strains of the virus, Salk and his team saw an opportunity to try to prevent the disease altogether, and their work paid off.

Manufacturers began to mass produce it.

Workers at England's Glaxo company in 1956. Photo from Fox Photos/Getty Images.

Suddenly, people could save their children from this awful disease.

Photo by Monty Fresco Jnr/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.

As people became immunized against it, the disease had a harder and harder time spreading between populations. Numbers of infections started to fall.

And, slowly, polio transformed from a demonic spectre into a manageable disease, then, eventually, into a distant memory.

A woman examines a gigantic model of a single polio virus capsule in 1959. Photo from Fox Photos/Getty Images.

Thanks to the vaccines created by Salk and other researchers, most of the world began to forget this disease.

Today, we're on the cusp of eradicating polio altogether. Its last holdouts are in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A child afflicted with polio in Afghanistan in 2009. Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images.

We're really close. In fact, one of polio's three strains has already been eliminated.

Photo by A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images.

Which is why the UN is switching to a two-strain vaccine this April and May.

In 2015, there were only 74 recorded cases of polio in the entire world. Just 74!

A Pakistani child receives the oral polio vaccine in 2016. Photo from Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Images.

Polio has no natural reservoir. It has no place to hide. Once it's gone, it's gone.

We might never be able to eliminate the flu because it can hide in so many animals, like birds or pigs. But polio only infects humans. So when all humans are immunized, polio will disappear.

We're so close to eliminating a horrible disease thanks to researchers like Salk and workers dedicated to administering vaccinations. We can overcome the worst demons. We have before. And we can do it again.

In the future, the only place where polio will exist is in picture archives like these. And the memories of my dad's poor feet.

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Thumbnail image by Three Lions/Getty Images.

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