It's your birthday? Happy birthday! And in the wise words of Parks and Rec: Treat yourself. But don't worry, that doesn't mean spending money. If you, like me, have spent hours online watching people's birthday freebie hauls, it's time to do one yourself.

With birthday freebies, you could plan a day that gets you a free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, where does one get all these birthday freebies? We rounded up 50 places to collect all your free birthday rewards.

And if you think these are too good to be true, your inclination might be to run. Most retailers and restaurants require you to sign up for their rewards programs to earn your birthday freebies, and some require a minimum annual spend. But with a little planning, you can guarantee yourself a birthday full of free stuff.

Food and beverage birthday freebies

At Cheesecake Factory, score a free slice of cheesecake on your birthday.
Credit: Getty Images / WoodysPhotos

• Applebee's: Members of Club Applebee's enjoy a free dessert on their birthday. Not to mention, you get a free appetizer when you sign up for the club.

• Auntie Anne's: On your birthday, Auntie Anne's Rewards members enjoy a free pretzel. Keep in mind, you must make at least one purchase annually to qualify.

• AMC: AMC Stubs Insiders enjoy a free large popcorn during their birthday month. But for Premiere and A-List members, enjoy a free large popcorn and a large fountain drink during your birthday month.

• Baskin-Robbins: Baskin-Robbins Rewards members enjoy a free scoop on their birthday after their first qualified purchase.

• Benihana: For members of Benihana's Friends with Benefits rewards program (which also includes STK Steakhouse, Kona Grill, RA Sushi, Samurai, or Salt Water Social restaurants), enjoy a $50 birthday reward to use toward a birthday meal.

• Buca Di Beppo: Join Buca Di Beppo's eClub and get a free Colossal Brownie Sundae on your birthday.

• Burger King: With Burger King's Royal Perks program, enjoy double rewards during your birthday month and a free item on your birthday. You'll earn 20 points (or "Crowns" as BK calls them) for every $1 spent, which can be redeemed for even more free stuff.

• Buffalo Wild Wings: As a member of Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin' Rewards, enjoy a free six-piece wing on your birthday.

• Cava: For fans of Mediterranean cuisine, join Cava Rewards and get a freebie on your birthday. Members enjoy their choice of a free drink, pita chips, or dessert.

• Cheesecake Factory: Join Cheesecake Rewards, and on your birthday, get a free slice of cheesecake or a layered cake.

• Chili's: Sign up for My Chili's Rewards and enjoy a free molten lava cake on your birthday.

• Chipotle: We see free chips and guac in your future. At Chipotle, join the restaurant's reward program and enjoy a free birthday reward.

• Cinnabon: Cinnabon Rewards members enjoy a free 16-ounce cold brew on their birthday.

• Cold Stone Creamery: For Cold Stone Creamery Rewards members, receive a birthday coupon. The reward will be sent seven days before your birthday and is redeemable until seven days after your birthday.

• Crumbl Cookies: At Crumbl Cookies, Silver Tier and above rewards members enjoy a free single cookie voucher on their birthday.

• Dairy Queen: Members of the DQ Rewards get a coupon for a free treat on their birthday, but you must spend at least $1 in the 45 days prior to your birthday, so plan ahead.

• Denny's: Your birthday breakfast is covered at Denny's. Members of Denny's Rewards enjoy a free Value Slam on their birthday.

• Domino's: At Domino's, loyal customers of Domino's Rewards enjoy a free birthday gift. The gifts vary and may include a free medium pizza, free lava cakes, or a discount.

• Dunkin' Donuts: While Dunkin' doesn't give out free drinks or donuts on your birthday, they will give you extra points. Dunkin' Rewards members get 3x points on their birthday, which you can redeem later for free food and drinks.

• Edible Arrangements: If you love sending Edible Arrangements, then you'll be gifted back on your birthday. Members of its rewards program receive a free box of dipped fruit on their birthday.

• IHOP: For pancake lovers, sign up for IHOP's International Bank of Pancakes rewards and collect points to receive a free full stack of pancakes on your birthday.

• Jamba Juice: A sweet but nutritious birthday treat could come from Jamba Juice, as Jamba Rewards members receive a free birthday smoothie.

• Jersey Mike's: How about your birthday served Mike's Way? Join Jersey Mike's email club and get a free birthday sub — as long as you've purchased a regular sub within the past year.

• Jimmy John's: Join the Jimmy John's rewards program and enjoy a free sub on your birthday.

• Krispy Kreme: Donut lovers need to be in Krispy Kreme's rewards program, which gets you a free birthday donut.

• LongHorn Steakhouse: On your birthday, you deserve a steak dinner, and LongHorn thinks so, too. When you join LongHorn's eClub, you get a free dessert or special coupon on your birthday.

• McDonald's: Receive a free medium fry at McDonald's on your birthday by downloading the McDonald's app and joining My McDonald's Rewards.

• Olive Garden: When you sign up for Olive Garden's email list, you'll get a coupon for free dessert on your birthday. Unlimited breadsticks, salad, and free chocolate lasagna certainly sound like the perfect birthday meal.

• Panera Bread: Members of MyPanera rewards get a free treat on their birthday: a muffin, cookie, pastry, or bagel.

• Papa John's: For a sweet birthday treat, join Papa Rewards. You'll be treated to a free dessert on your birthday.

• P.F. Chang's: At P.F. Chang's, get a free appetizer or dessert as a member of the restaurant's rewards program. That means your birthday lettuce wraps could be totally free.

• Pinkberry: Froyo is making a comeback. Pinkcard members get a free small yogurt with toppings on their birthday.

• Pizza Hut: Sign up for Pizza Hut's reward program and get a reward of breadsticks or cinnamon sticks on your birthday. Just make sure your birthday is added to your profile.

• Red Lobster: Go for the cheddar bay biscuits and stay for the free birthday reward. Joining Red Lobster's rewards gets you a free birthday dessert.

• Red Robin: A burger could be on the house when you go to Red Robin on your birthday. To qualify, sign up for Red Robin Royalty and spend $10 prior to your birthday.

• Ruby Tuesday: Enjoy a free burger or Garden Bar entree at Ruby Tuesday on your birthday when you sign up for Ruby Rewards. Just sign up in the app or online.

• Sbarro: Pizza lovers get a free XL NY Slice at Sbarro on their birthday. To get the reward, you must have a Sbarro rewards account and have the Sbarro app downloaded.

• 7-Eleven: You don't have to wait for free slushie day on 7/11. With 7Rewards, get a free small slushie on your birthday, too.

• Shake Shack: For a sweet birthday treat, add your birthday to your Shake Shack account and receive a free milkshake on the big day.

• Starbucks: As a member of Starbucks rewards, get a free drink or snack on your birthday.

• Subway: As a card-carrying member of the Sub Club, you'll enjoy a free cookie on your birthday, yum!

• Taco Bell: Join Taco Bell's rewards program and climb the tiers throughout the year to get a free birthday surprise. Earn 250 points and get to the restaurant's Hot Tier, and the birthday reward will be all yours.

• TGI Fridays: At TGI Fridays, not only will you get serenaded with a birthday song, but you'll also enjoy a free birthday dessert. To redeem, you must be a member of Fridays Rewards.

• Waffle House: Waffle lovers need to join Waffle House's Regulars Club. Joining gets you coupons and a sweet birthday treat.

• Wingstop: When you sign up for a Wingstop account, receive a free birthday reward to celebrate.

Retail birthday freebies

You can't miss going to Sephora during your birthday month.
Credit: Getty Images / Erik McGregor

• Aerie and American Eagle: For a new birthday 'fit, join RealRewards by American Eagle and Aerie and receive a $5 birthday reward. Rewards are sent out seven days prior to your birthday.

• Bath & Body Works: Start a new year smelling right with Bath & Body Works. Create a rewards account and receive a free birthday surprise.

• CVS: If you have a CVS card, your ExtraCare membership will get you a $3 reward on your birthday. Just go to the CVS app to claim.

• DSW: Treat yourself to a new pair of shoes. As a member of DSW's VIP program, you'll receive a $5 gift certificate to use during your birthday month.

• Old Navy: Climb the ranks of Old Navy's rewards program, and you and a family member could enjoy a reward on your birthday. Core members receive a birthday bonus, while Premier members (who spend $350+ annually) get a birthday bonus to share with a family member. Meanwhile, Old Navy card members get a birthday bonus to share with three family members.

• Sephora: Sephora's birthday gifts are iconic. During your birthday month, Sephora Insiders receive a free gift to redeem in-store or online.

• Stanley: For the Stanley Cup enthusiasts, it's time to sign up for the Stanley Club, which gets you a free birthday gift.

• Target: What's better than a discount on things you already need? Target Circle members get a 5% discount on their birthday.

• Ulta: Ulta Rewards members also get some pampering on their bdays. Just sign-up with your email and put in your birthday, and you'll get a treat when the big day rolls around.

• Yankee Candle: For candle lovers, there's Yankee Candle's Fragrance Family rewards. When you sign up with your email and input your birthday into your profile, you'll receive a birthday gift.

AI is everywhere. But what is AI? We are hearing people tell us that AI is already smarter than humans in a lot of ways. But what does that mean?

AI can be a great tool. It can be our virtual assistant, it can help us fill out emails and meal prep, or perform the mundane, day-to-day tasks that you don't want to do. New use cases for AI are being released every day.

But doesn't it also mean that some people could be using AI to take shortcuts that we would want human intervention in, like, I don't know, nuclear war? Militaries are already looking into how AI is going to be used in the battlefield to predict not just troop movement, but drone strikes. Do we want literal human life and death on a wide scale being determined by a computer?

Mashable's Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko tries to figure it out in our latest Mashable Rant.

For more on The AI Doc, look for Mashable's recording of The AI Panel: Or What Being an Apocaloptimist Looks Like, which featured filmmaker Daniel Kwan, producer Ted Tremper, and co-producer Diane Becker, along with Mashable's own Kristy Puchko as moderator.

And for your chance to see The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist early and at no charge, check out Mashable's advanced screenings in L.A. and New York.

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist opens in theaters on March 27. Look for more Mashable coverage out of SXSW.

A NASA rover has discovered signs of an ancient river beneath Mars' surface, using ground-penetrating radar to reveal buried layers of sediment left behind by flowing water.

But this was not a lazy river. This was likely a larger and faster-moving channel than many scientists had accounted for, perhaps comparable to medium-size rivers on Earth.

Before NASA sent the Perseverance rover to Jezero Crater, geologists already believed the basin once held a bygone body of water. Orbital images showed classic delta landscapes on the surface, with fanlike deposits where a river might have emptied into a lake.

Perseverance's findings add compelling direct evidence from below the surface. They suggest the Martian river, existing between 3.7 and 4.2 billion years ago, was part of a larger system than space satellites could see. Its currents may have been capable of carrying sand and small rocks downstream.

The new data, published in the journal Science Advances, also show the river was likely stable over a long stretch of time, not merely a flash flood with sudden mudflows. That matters because it bolsters the idea that Mars once had better conditions for supporting simple life.

Mars today is cold and dry, with a thin atmosphere that lets water quickly evaporate or freeze. But billions of years ago, the planet probably had a thicker atmosphere and a warmer climate. Rivers and lakes may have lasted long enough to carve valleys, move sediment, and reshape entire regions.

The rover collected the underground data as it drove across the floor of Jezero Crater. Its instrument, the Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment, or "Rimfax" for short, works by sending radio waves into the ground and interpreting the echoes that bounce back. Different materials — sand, rock, or ice — reflect the signals in distinct ways. By studying those patterns, researchers can map hidden ancient landscapes.

Billions of years ago, Mars probably had a thicker atmosphere and a warmer climate, able to sustain robust rivers and lakes.
Credit: dottedhippo / iStock / Getty Images Plus illustration

During 78 traverses, the car-sized lab on six wheels collected data from more than 115 feet underground, according to the new paper. That's nearly two times deeper than the rover has peered below the surface in the past.

The radar images show steep, slanted layers that usually form when water has shuttled sediment and dropped them in stacks. Over time, those stacks build up into recognizable shapes. On Mars, they now sit buried under dust and volcanic debris.

China's now-defunct Zhurong rover, part of the 2021 Tianwen-1 mission, also used underground radar to discover evidence of a vast ancient Martian ocean, which may have covered about one-third of the Red Planet's surface at one time. Its location is about 3,000 miles away from Perseverance at Utopia Planitia — the place where NASA's Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976.

The Chinese radar revealed ancient beaches that extended nearly a mile, buried 30 to 115 feet below the surface. Several U.S.-based scientists, including Michael Manga at UC Berkeley, helped analyze the data.

"The fact that you can go to Mars with a rover and move over the surface and look underground is kind of mind-boggling to me," Manga told Mashable last year.

Highlighted areas on NASA's Perseverance rover show the components of the Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment, or 'Rimfax' for short.
Credit: S.E. Hamran et al. / doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00740-4 / NASA / JPL-Caltech

Researchers say the new Perseverance work may have implications for where scientists look for biosignatures in the future. Sediments formed in water are prime targets because they can trap and preserve chemical clues about the past.

Perseverance is collecting Martian rock and soil samples to send back to Earth, though the future of that mission remains doubtful. Mars Sample Return has been in limbo since a review found it would cost upward of $11 billion and take nearly two decades to achieve. NASA leaders say they're trying to salvage it with a new approach.

In September, NASA announced a sample collected by Perseverance contained fossilized material that ancient alien microorganisms could have created. Though the evidence is strong, NASA scientists say they can't rule out other non-biological explanations for what the rover found.

Perseverance scientists say they've exhausted what they can learn about the sample on Mars, but advanced tools on Earth could probe it for complex organic molecules, cell structures, and DNA.

"This finding by our incredible Perseverance rover is the closest we've actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator for science.