Factory robot impales worker with 10 foot-long steel spikes after malfunction

Parrot uses owner’s Amazon Alexa to order shopping, play music

When faking your own death to get out of catering a wedding is not fraud

Child sex dolls seized by Canadian border agents

Boys experience their first ejaculation (thorarche) during adolescence + Thelarche is the onset of secondary (postnatal) breast development, usually occurring at the beginning of puberty in girls + Menarche

Breastfeeding Greater Than 6 Months Is Associated with Smaller Maternal Waist Circumference Up to One Decade After Delivery

Can Humans Really Discriminate 1 Trillion Odors? (The paper’s extravagant claims are based on errors of mathematical logic.)

Physical activity in the evening does not cause sleep problems

Sleep selectively stabilizes contextual aspects of negative memories

The human brain needs to suppress obvious ideas in order to reach the most creative ones. A new study shows that brainwaves play a crucial role in inhibiting habitual thinking modes to pave the way to access more remote ideas.

Research shows that when a nonprofit receives a donation, its views on rules and legislation magically line up with the donor’s. 

The project consisted of Warhol vacuuming the gallery rug and then displaying the vacuum and its signed dust bag in the gallery that he’d cleaned

The Business of Selling Your Location More: Facebook Filed A Patent To Calculate Your Future Location

These Portraits Were Made by AI: None of These People Exist

Advertisers place a single brown pixel on a bright background in a mobile ad. It looks like dust, so users try to wipe it off. That registers as a click, and the user is taken to the homepage. [52 things I learned in 2018]

Should I buy bitcoin (Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island). Should I delete facebook (Washington). Should I cut my hair (Arizona, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio). The Most-Googled “Should I” Question State by State

There Are Now More Shows Streaming Than There Are on Broadcast or Cable

Marriott, like the other big hotel companies, owns very few of its own hotels these days. Marriott is actually a family of 30 hotel brands, many of them virtually indistinguishable. What’s the business logic?

NASA Research Reveals Saturn is Losing Its Rings at “Worst-Case-Scenario” Rate

New results suggest there is no methane on Mars, living organisms thus less likely

Planets with oxygen don’t necessarily have life

The Enfer (French for “Hell”) is a special department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. It is a special collection of books and manuscripts of an erotic or pornographic character which, because of their rarity and value, may be seen only with authorization.

Polybius is an almost-certainly fictional arcade game. The original game allegedly was part of a government-run psychology experiment. [Thanks Darren!]

1-900-Hot-Jedi

Presenting Oscar, The Modular Body

Poo found on every McDonald’s touchscreen tested

London bans junk food advertising on public transportation

Major dark web drug dealers have started to voluntarily ban the synthetic opioid fentanyl

When cryptocurrency issuers want positive coverage for their virtual coins, they buy it

It claims to be, in short, a next-generation lie detector. Polygraph tests are a $2 billion industry in the US and, despite their inaccuracy, are widely used to screen candidates for government jobs. Released in 2014 by Converus, a Mark Cuban–funded startup, EyeDetect is pitched by its makers as a faster, cheaper, and more accurate alternative to the notoriously unreliable polygraph.

The aim of the current study was to evaluate sleep quality, daytime dozing, anxiety proneness, chronotype and preferred start time in a sample of university students

Most women would be stunned to discover that the law does not consider a piece of their body to be their property, and they legally have almost no voice regarding the use of their own placentas [Placentophagy: A Women ’s Right to Her Placenta | PDF]

Harvard scientists found a potential key ingredient to the start of life on Earth [more]

Chemical industry giant 3M is waging an aggressive campaign to stave off new regulations and potentially billions of dollars in damages stemming from a contamination crisis that has fouled tens of millions of Americans’ drinking water. Inside a corporate giant’s fight to thwart a massive pollution tab

The placement of a period and no spaces between “G-20” and “in” resulted in an inadvertent hyperlink

Scientific communication in a post-truth society

After nine years, Uber isn’t within hailing distance of making money and continues to bleed more red ink than any start-up in history. By contrast, Facebook and Amazon were solidly cash-flow positive by their fifth year. Uber has never presented a case as to why it will ever be profitable, let alone earn an adequate return on capital.

There are about 4,256 human-made satellites orbiting the Earth, of which about 1,149 are still working. If Earth’s orbit is so crowded, why don’t we see space junk in photos of the Earth?

How Restaurants Got So Loud

The first ever human vs. computer no-limit Texas hold ‘em competition took place from April 24-May 8, 2015 at River’s Casino in Pittsburgh, PA. In this article I present my thoughts on the competition design, agent architecture, and lessons learned. [PDF]

How did Choc, a quirky calligraphic typeface drawn by a French graphic designer in the 1950s, end up on storefronts everywhere? [NY Times]

The dolly zoom, illustrated

Behind the scene: Charlie Chaplin roller-skating in a department store in Modern Time (1936)

Robert Mueller Devotional Candle

When trying to trademark Vagina Guitars,  the federal trademark office called this honorable man and said,  “This is not possible. You can not trademark the word guitar.

Vagina Weightlifting Can Empower Women

Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years

Emile Ratelband, 69, wants to change the date of birth on his passport from March 11, 1949 to March 11, 1969. He says he has had a check-up and is “biologically” 25 years younger than his date of birth claims.

Ellenstein, 57, donated sperm anonymously in his 20s and early 30s to make some extra cash. This past year, thanks to online tools, including DNA test kits, he discovered that he has at least 24 biological children.

we propose that instances of orgasmic dysfunction in many women may be a byproduct of an inability to find and/or retain high-quality male partners. Related: Women’s orgasm obstacles | PDF

Orgasm types include those related to exercise, sleep, drug use, riding in vehicles, breastfeeding, eating, auditory stimulation, and childbirth, among others

Did the Victorians have faster reactions?

Practicing cognitive-training programs or intellectually demanding activities do not enhance general cognitive ability or any cognitive skill

People who think their opinions are superior to others are most prone to overestimating their relevant knowledge and ignoring chances to learn more

“How does it work?” vs. “What are the laws?” Two conceptions of psychological explanation [PDF]

Can hypnotic suggestibility measured online?

Hackers erase 6,500 sites from the Dark Web in one attack

Scott Galloway: Over the past decade, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have aggregated more economic value and influence than nearly any other commercial entity in history. The breakup of big tech should and will happen. [More: The Four — What to do (July 2017) + How the traditional rules of business don’t apply to the Big Four, September 2018 ]

Google Turns 20: How an Internet Search Engine Reshaped the Wolrd

A bra that falls off when you clap your hands (new patent)

New artists who show their work early in a relatively small network of 400 venues are all but guaranteed a successful art career, the study said. By contrast, artists who exhibit mainly in lower-level galleries and midtier institutions are likely to remain stuck in that orbit.

How I Accidentally Wound Up Running an Outlaw Biker

I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It.

Saddam Hussein memorial plaque appears on London bench

Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’

Semaj (James spelled backwards; in the top 1000 most popular names for boys in the United States from 2001 until 2014.)

How the seven rules of Soviet disinformation are being used to create today’s fake news stories

IBM Q [more] [Thanks Tim]

Professional mermaids say ‘merverts’ are making their lives a hassle

Restaurant owner murders man, serves his remains to vegetarian diners

Woman who had sex with 20 ghosts is now engaged to a spirit

Researchers found a way to “see” through walls using ambient Wi-Fi signals and an ordinary smartphone

Canada installs Chinese underwater monitoring devices next to US nuclear submarine base

scientists developed a tool that seems remarkably accurate at judging written falsehoods

In a landmark study, 20 top US corporate lawyers with decades of experience in corporate law and contract review were pitted against an AI. Their task was to spot issues in five Non-Disclosure Agreements.

Emotions are frequently thought of as reactions to events in the world. However, many of our emotional experiences are of our own making, coming from thoughts and memories. These different origins mean that these endogenous emotions are more controllable than exogenous emotions.

Loneliness increases a person’s risk of dementia by 40 percent

Curiosity is associated with well-being

Study: Tetris is a great distraction for easing an anxious mind

Oral contraceptive use is associated with greater mood stability and higher relationship satisfaction

Human saliva as a cleaning agent for dirty surfaces

Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity

Psychedelic psilocybin therapy for depression granted Breakthrough Therapy status by FDA

Tolaas also invented 1,500 “smell memory kits” — abstract odors that have never been smelled before. When you want to remember an event, you open the amulet and inhale, sealing the moment in your emotional core.

Swiss experiment with sound to make cheese tastier

Record labels’ study shows performances of Bach are almost 30 percent faster than they were 50 years ago

The shopping mall would have been inconceivable without air conditioning, as would the deep-plan and glass-walled office block, as would computer servers. An inversion of nature: how air conditioning created the modern city

Why Do Mosquitoes Bite Some People More Than Others? (Blood type, metabolism, exercise, shirt color, drinking beer…)

a special fifth state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)

20 “Rules for History of Philosophy”

NYC Municipal Archives Collections

What happened to the Sphinx’s nose?

Map of Roman Air Bases in 2nd Century AD and US governors by eye color and if you’re asked to “put your hands up” and have trouble identifying the situation

Sex doll rental company will make a replica of your dead lover

Man run over by lawn mower while trying to kill son with chainsaw

Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic (This paper presents a nutritional template that offers a proxy calorie value for the human body)

How to Order a Beer — Cultural Differences in the Use of Conventional Gestures for Numbers

Toilet Flushing System Bursting Prompts Massive Recall

Kansas City police looking for stolen inflatable human colon

some down-for-anything fans have also reported post-slushy poop that ranges from blue to green

The Secretive Business of Facial-Recognition Software in Retail Stores

We explored personality inferences made from body shapes … Personality-trait profiles were predicted reliably from a subset of the body-shape features

Do women’s preferences for masculine voices shift across the ovulatory cycle?

A “Need for Chaos” and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies

we often forget about the fact that the frontal lobes – the most developed part of the brain – are at the same time our greatest weakness, exposed to the action of damaging factors in our evolving environment. Is depression the cost of evolution? The Evolutionary Theory of Depression

Can Moons Have Moons?

Scientists Create Artificial Wood That Is Water- and Fire-Resistant

The band Chic wrote a song in 1978, “Le Freak”, after being refused entry to Studio 54 on New Year’s Eve 1977, despite being invited by Grace Jones.

at least 20 percent of Manhattan’s street retail is vacant or about to become vacant. (The city government’s estimate is lower.)

The man who has eaten at more than 7,300 Chinese restaurants, but can’t use chopsticks and doesn’t care for food

Interviews with elederly people (1929)

Shredding Banksy’s the Girl and Balloon - The Director’s Cut

Restaurant reviews

A missing man who was murdered more than 40 years ago has been found - after a seed from a fig in his stomach grew into a tree

Seeking advice lowers mortality risk

We watched 216 episodes of five popular television series on Netflix and identified 333 separate driving scenes, of which 271 (81.4%) portrayed at least one risky driving behaviour.

This paper compares mortality between Gold and Silver medalists in Olympic Track and Field to study how achievement influences health. Contrary to conventional wisdom, winners die over one year earlier than losers.

Zurich crematorium starts to trade precious metals filtered from people’s ashes

Music training does not enhance non-music cognitive skills or academic achievement

Why Determinism in Physics Has No Implications for Free Will

Sixteen healthy volunteers without gastrointestinal disease and normal faecal calprotectin baseline values ingested their own blood twice, either by drinking or via nasogastric tube. Ingestion of blood resulted in an increase in faecal calprotectin-positive tests.

All participants were engaged in a steady heterosexual relationship. Women reported a masturbation frequency of about once per two weeks. Men reported a masturbation frequency of about twice per week. PDF

Three scholars spent 10 months writing 20 hoax papers

Salt not as damaging to health as previously thought, says study (involving more than 90,000 people people in more than 300 communities in 18 countries)

Randy Gardner is the holder of the scientifically documented record for the longest a human has gone without sleep (11 days 25 minutes).

A new mathematical model suggests that signs of extraterrestrial intelligence could be common

Scientists Use DNA to Expose the World’s Top 3 Illegal Ivory Cartels

Effects of the replacement of wheat flour with cricket powder on the characteristics of muffins

Last year, across the globe, more than 100 billion servings of instant noodles were eaten. That’s more than 13 servings for every person on the planet.

History of art paintings through the lens of entropy and complexity

artnet Intelligence Report

Who was in on Banksy’s ’self-destruct’ art stunt? [previously: Banksy’s Girl With Balloon (2006) self-destructed at the end of a Sotheby’s auction]

Self-driving homes

Putin at the photocopier

Dancing in the Streets

Sex doll brothel raided by police, closed down

She thought she had candles to burn during a power outage — but it was dynamite

Japan starts space elevator experiments

Amazon has patented a system that would put workers in a cage, on top of a robot

The Secret Drug Pricing System Middlemen Use to Rake in Millions

Stab Wound to the Chest Masquerading as Impalement by Rose Bush

Scientists discovered wasps, honeybees and even a squirrel nesting inside a mummified corpse. Researchers think the corpse had remained undiscovered for about 13 years. 

The report — which surveyed more than 11,000 researchers worldwide — also finds a growing “reviewer fatigue.” Finding peer reviewers is becoming harder, even as the overall volume of publications rises globally

Smile intensity in social networking profile photographs is related to greater scientific achievements

The experience of having a daughter as a first child significantly increases fathers’ support for policies designed to increase gender equality

People’s interpretation of new evidence is often biased by their previous choices

People overestimate the size of their nose

How is experience transformed into memory?

The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages

Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including subtle motions that betray what’s being said and faint images of what’s around a corner (with a recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” reconstructed from the minuscule vibrations of an empty chip bag as viewed through a soundproof window)

Did scientists discover a new shape?

Where former Lehman Brothers employees are today 

The generation now entering the workforce is sober, industrious and driven by money. They are also socially awkward and timid about taking the reins.

Meet the Worshipers Who Believe They’re Aliens in Human Form

This note discusses the gap in intellectual property protections for the fashion industry

trends in the diffusion of misinformation on Facebook and Twitter between Jan- uary 2015 and July 2018 [PDF]

Are New York’s free FREE LinkNYC internet kiosks tracking your movements?

“The Most Unwanted Song” is a song created by artists Komar and Melamid and composer Dave Soldier in 1997. The song was designed to incorporate lyrical and musical elements that were annoying to most people, as determined by a public opinion survey.

How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind — from a Magician and Google Design Ethicist [Thanks Tim]

The 20 Books Travelers Are Always Leaving Behind at Their Hotels

We only eat fruit, and haven’t brushed our teeth in two years

Air Guitarists Compete At World Championships

For $450, This Japanese Company Will Quit Your Job For You

Google and Mastercard Cut a Secret Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

The present research examined ‘creepiness,’ a commonly referenced but little understood construct

people routinely find themselves on the receiving end of others’ memory failures; that is, people sometimes find themselves forgotten

Researchers find evidence that neural systems actively remove memories, which suggests that forgetting may be the default mode of the brain

relation between the gray matter volume of the amygdala and procrastination

Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015 [PDF]

I argue that the object that is universally lost in all break-ups is a person with certain intrinsic qualities, who is in a relationship characterised by certain shared activities and recognized as romantic. That means that, at least in romantic terminations, the beloved and the relationship are not independent objects of grief. The Break-Up Check: Exploring Romantic Love through Relationship Terminations. [last week: How to Recover from Romantic Heartbreak + previously: The scientific study of heartbreak is extremely new, with nearly all articles on the matter appearing in the last 10-15 years]

Pet Phone: Using Apologies to Enhance User-Smartphone Attachment [PDF]

Pink for Girls, Red for Boys, and Blue for Both Genders: Colour Preferences in Children and Adults

“Google, but for colors”

“I think [Warhol’s] most interesting work is actually the way he created something that he called business-art”

How Two Thieves Stole Thousands of Prints From University Libraries

Scientists have shown that water is likely to be a major component of those exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) which are between two to four times the size of Earth.

Any contact with water whatsoever – even her own sweat – leaves Rachel with a painful, swollen and intensely itchy rash which can last for several hours The woman who is allergic to water

People are having trouble telling the difference between real videos and the deepfake videos

Healthy adult humans blink somewhere between every 2 and 10 seconds, and a single blink takes between one-tenth and four-tenths of a second. That’s what would be normal to see in a video of a person talking. But it’s not what happens in many deepfake videos.

Conditional video synthesis from Berkeley [Thanks Tim]

Police bodycams can be hacked to doctor footage

The effects of emotional disclosure were equivalent whether participants thought they were disclosing to a chatbot or to a person.

Here I report a case of “masturbation” with a tool by a wild infant chimpanzee. The observed “masturbation” did not involve ejaculation, because infant chimpanzees are unable to ejaculate.

Tokyo University manipulated test scores for more than a decade to ensure more men became doctors

Among the most frequent reasons that men indicated for being single included poor flirting skills, low self-confidence, poor looks, shyness, low effort, and bad experience from previous relationships.

How to Recover from Romantic Heartbreak. Use “negative reappraisal,” and understand you have work to do—time alone may not be enough.

The strongest positive correlates of narcissism were: using words related to sports, second-person pronouns, and swear words.

observation of the eyes and ocular regions of normal control individuals, and of serial killers, enabled average respondents to distinguish these individuals clearly in terms of trustworthiness, likability, and general “goodness.”

Chemists discover how blue light (from digital devices and the sun ) speeds blindness

Lip-reading artificial intelligence could help the deaf—or spies

It’s nearly impossible to break a dry spaghetti noodle into only two pieces. A new MIT study shows how and why it can be done. [more]

Obesity has reached alarming levels in Thailand, which ranks as the second- heaviest nation in Asia, after Malaysia. One in three Thai men are obese, while more than 40 percent of women are significantly overweight. [NY Times]

When presented with two vendors selling effectively identical products, the Japanese choose whichever one has the longer line in front of it

An errant fly ruined a world record domino attempt in Germany

Man falls into Anish Kapoor’s artwork, ends up at hospital

Adam is the founder of Dick At Your Door

STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All

How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions Jerome Jacobson and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip club owners, and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’

Mountain View’s unusual rule for Facebook: No free food

Hackers break into voting machines within 2 hours at Defcon

A new report debunks the health benefits of taking omega-3 supplements And: Giving children omega-3 fatty acid supplements reduces disruptive behavior, which in turn had a positive effect on their parents, making them less likely to argue with each other and engage in other verbal abuse

Neuroscientists report that they had participants wear a ball gag while watching images of people in pain

People’s eye movements reveal whether they are sociable, conscientious or curious

psychology researchers reveal factors that lead to infidelity, as well as prevent it.

Coupled individuals adjust their ideal mate preferences according to their actual partner

the extraordinary aspects of the human mind are due to our species’ ability to process the relations among three items of information simultaneously

Across six studies, we find that the tendency to experience awe is positively associated with scientific thinking. We show that the disposition to experience awe predicts a more accurate understanding of how science works, rejection of creationism, and rejection of unwarranted teleological explanations more broadly.

Psychologists have proposed an explanation for why Ouija board users feel as though a spirit is moving the planchette

We find that suicide rates rise 0.7% in US counties and 2.1% in Mexican municipalities for a 1 °C increase in monthly average temperature

Nearly 412,000 deaths every year in the US can be attributed to lead contamination

Assassination Markets Let Augur Users Gamble on Trump Murder

Son of Romanian peasants, Constantin Brancusi arrived in Paris around the same time Picasso did, but on foot. Within a few years, he had somehow managed to apprentice with Rodin.

In 1978 a series of small mistakes created some characters out of nothing. The errors went undiscovered just long enough to be set in stone, and now these ghosts are, at least in potential, a part of every computer on the planet

Pianist Plays Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Ravel & Debussy for Blind Elephants in Thailand

McDonald’s Sued For $1.5M By Customer Who Wanted More Than 1 Napkin

Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States

Man accused of faking own kidnapping to get money from his family

About 56 percent of crypto startups that raise money through token sales die within four months of their initial coin offerings

Google decided to make Maps its next billion dollar business by raising prices 14 times and decreasing free usage limit almost 30 times

What Cyber-War Will Look Like The hacking campaigns I envision would be low-key, localized, and fairly low-tech.

This research explores the possibility that exaggerating in order to entertain the listener while sharing previous experiences can increase interpersonal closeness in new relationships

Do smart people have better intuitions?

Why do angry people overestimate their intelligence?

What Ever Happened to the “Cool” Kids? Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior.

Verbal communication during sex did not predict sexual satisfaction

Fukushima’s nuclear signature found in California wine

How Postcards Solved The Problem Of Disappearing Rice

Maybe we can afford to suck CO2 out of the sky after all

A white female and baby giraffe were first spotted on a reserve in Kenya in early August. Leucism, which inhibits skin cells from producing pigment but allows other organs, like eyes, to be dark colored. Albinism, a congenital condition, inhibits the body from producing pigment in all organs, and animals with this condition often have pink eyes.

Suicide in parachuting

The 50-something man has been living alone in the Brazilian Amazon for 22 years, after the last members of his tribe were murdered.

Timeline of the far future

Scores of long-buried archaeological sites have been revealed once again as ‘cropmarks’, or patterns of growth in ripening crops and parched grasslands More: Europe’s scorching weather has revealed a mysterious henge

Hokusai relocated 93 times and changed his name 30 times

WernAcular

#drone

Man arrested after trying to pay for meal with credit card stolen from waitress

Credit card debt in China is $2t v. $815b in the United States.

Thousands of people in Sweden have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards, key cards and even rail cards, into their bodies.

Cocaine in rivers harming endangered eels, study finds

The blue lights are meant to discourage people from using drugs in store bathrooms by making it more difficult for them to see their veins

Pudding sent to the edge of space goes missing

More than 700 hives, valued at as much as a million dollars, went missing in a single night. How to Steal 50 Million Bees

Progress in artificial intelligence makes the technology increasingly relevant to military applications. In particular, autonomous weapons could be of great military use. And: U.S. military is actively developing deadly uncontrolled drone swarms. Previously: MICRO DRONES KILLER ARMS ROBOTS

Blind Snapshot Predictions vs. Actual Photos [Thanks Tim]

Many of these traditional stock- and bond-picking firms are now paying up to hire mathematical and computer experts. They want these recruits to dive into pools of data—and the machine-learning tools that harness that data and other information—in search of trading ideas and blind spots.

Instead of ‘finding your passion,’ try developing it, Stanford scholars say

Statements that were repeated were more likely to be considered true compared to new statements [PDF]

Education appears to be the most consistent, robust, and durable method yet to be identified for raising intelligence

Researchers have identified over 1,016 specific genes associated with intelligence, the vast majority of which are unknown to science

How To Get Kids To Pay Attention

I got Facebook removed from RBS’s online banking landing page because it could access the account pages (which it was not loaded on) Facebook JavaScript SDK is often illegal

We did not find any strong support for the hypothesis that exposure to images of half-naked women impact economic preferences

The first lawsuit was filed by asset management executive Steven Tananbaum, who alleged that Koons and the gallery failed to deliver three monumental sculptures, even after he paid millions of dollars for them.

Digital communication is undergoing exclamation-point inflation

The return to ‘inflatable tanks’ and the art of deception in the British Army

The “sudden death during recreational mummification bondage” happened Nov. 22, but was not reported until muckraking podcaster Ebner broke the story last week. S&M-loving Hollywood exec keeps job after man dies in his sex dungeon

St. Ignace Mystery Spot

Who up [Thanks Tim]

realsuperhuman.net [Thanks Tim]