New York Wants Google Maps to Discourage Left Turns
Left Turns Cause A Quarter Of All Pedestrian Crashes In U.S.
Substance abuse reduces brain volume in women but not men
Facial Features: What Women Perceive as Attractive and What Men Consider Attractive
Cross-cultural study finds wide gap in what men and women want in a romantic partner
Is your fear of radiation irrational?
How to Sue Richard Prince and Win
Population density in NYC at day and night
A Researcher Made an Organic Computer Using Four Wired-Together Rat Brains
Scientists have discovered that living near trees is good for your health Related: Green and blue spaces promoted feelings of renewal, restoration, and spiritual connectedness
How You Consist of Trillions of Tiny Machines
What It’s Like to Be Profoundly Face-Blind
Scientists showed domestic dogs avoid people they have seen behave unhelpfully to their owners
Swimming under the surface is faster than swimming on the surface. And the fish kick may be the fastest subsurface form yet.
Where does water go when it doesn’t flow?
Why do puddles stop spreading?
Global sea levels have risen six meters in the last three decades
Chinese Zoo Animals Monitored For Earthquake Prediction
It is forbidden to die in the Arctic town of Longyearbyen
Canadian lifted into sky in lawn chair by 100+ balloons, arrested upon landing
Smile at a party and people are more likely to remember seeing your face there
Key element of human language discovered in bird babble
New method reveals exact time of death after 10 days
This Is How Uber Takes Over a City
How Ads Follow You from Phone to Desktop to Tablet
Secrets of catching attention revealed. 1,072 ‘context words’ disclosed.
What happens to sardine prices when fishermen get mobile phones ?
43% of married people don’t know how much money their spouse makes
Revealing the face of a criminal based on their genes may be closer than we think
Scientists build artificial neurons able to communicate with organic neurons
Brain connections last as long as the memories they store, Stanford neuroscientist finds
The hack is simple: if you are an average adult, a cup of coffee every 48 hours will do the trick.
Taking control remotely of modern cars has become distressingly easy for hackers
Do observers like curvature or do they dislike angularity? [PDF]
Are We Seeing the End of Homeopathy?
Expert philosophers are just as irrational as the rest of us
Of all the species that occasionally make a break for it, flamingos seem to have the most success. And: The inside of a flamingo’s egg is pink. And so is the milk parents feed their chicks.
If you want your statues clean, you just need to make them of bronze laced with arsenic
If sea levels rise as feared, some of the world’s island nations may disappear this century. Does that mean they no longer exist as countries?
Some Aspects of Adaptation to Failure
Is it possible to gauge how wealthy a New Yorker might be just by the way they pronounce their /r/ s? And: The Social Stratification of (r) in New York City Department Stores [PDF]
The Police Are Scanning the Faces of Every Single Person at Download Festival
Female psychopaths process moral judgements differently than male psychopaths
Love-Hate Relationships at Work Might Be Good for You
When Do People Prefer Carrots to Sticks? A Robust ‘Matching Effect’ in Policy Evaluation
The constantly updated catalogue of entrances to Hell in and around the UK
For years the sign has caused passengers on planes to freak out about going to the wrong place. [Thanks Tim]
Soft robot tentacle can lasso an ant without harming it
Interacting with women can impair men’s cognitive functioning
Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees
Lots of animals consume alcohol but only humans do it to get drunk.
The best bonfires are roughly as tall as they are wide
Why So Many Robots Struggled With the DARPA Challenge More: A Transformer Wins DARPA’s $2 Million Robotics Challenge
LEGO didn’t want any of the players to endow its online world with penises.
Algorithm Chooses the Most Creative Paintings in History
A photo of Jackie Siegel clutching an iced drink and taking a selfie at her daughter’s funeral
Man sues Chinese actress over her intense stare in TV show
Customer suspects annoyed waiter spat in soda; police use DNA to prove it
More New Yorkers are surviving being run over by 100-ton subway trains, statistics show
The brain shrinks over the course of the day, ending up smaller in the evening – before returning to its full size the next morning.
Group discussion improves lie detection
Study finds people — even teenagers — unconsciously follow advice from their elders
Seven or more hours of sleep per night: A health necessity for adults
Links found between blood type and risk of cognitive decline
Google’s Artificial Intelligence Is Learning How To Count Calories In Instagram Photos
Derived from the lapis lazuli stone, the pigment was considered more precious than gold. A brief history of ultramarine
Woman Who Claims She Owns Sun Takes eBay To Court: They Won’t Let People Bid On It
Eating the placenta: trendy but no proven health benefits and unknown risks
What to say — and what not to say — on a first date, according to science
Researchers say: Don’t worry what other people think, going out on your own can be fun
When light travels through a medium such as oil or water, does it pull or push on the medium?
How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds
Horses communicate amongst each other with eye and ear twitches
Why you should answer all your emails at 3PM (The ideal work schedule, as determined by circadian rhythms)
In 1948, a man was found on a beach in South Australia. The mysterious circumstances of his death have captivated generations of true-crime fanatics. Today, one amateur sleuth has come close to solving the case.
These are the sounds left behind when you compress a song to MP3 + How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?
Rejected ‘The Shining’ Poster Designs From Saul Bass, With Stanley Kubrick’s Notes
Interactive Mirror Built from 450 Rotating Penguins by Daniel Rozin
“scroll to top” elevator [Thanks Tim]
Scientists reverse aging in human cell lines
Some perfectly healthy people can’t remember their own lives
Gender and racial bias can be ‘unlearnt’ during sleep
Commuting length, distance, and means are stress factors that can lead to burnout
Yoshitaka Fujii falsified 183 papers before statistics exposed him—roughly 7 percent of all retracted papers between 1980 and 2011. And: I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How. [Thanks Tim]
Mystery of Swiss cheese holes solved
Giraffes have long enjoyed a special place in the hearts of evolutionists for another reason: as a real-life example of how to distinguish Darwinian from Lamarckian evolution.
Like every other business, clandestine operations have a budget and like every federal agency, that budget is examined by scores of government workers. But how do expenses work if you’re a spy, doing secret work?
Can you be guilty of copyright infringement for using your own work?
Finnegans Wake becomes a hit book in China
Algorithm Clones Facial Expressions…And Pastes Them Onto Other Faces
Women earn less than men, but lesbians earn more than straight women
Relationship between women’s personality traits and oral sex behaviors
Drinking coffee can give you better erections, study
Study sheds new light on the impact of video gaming on the brain
Why The Oldest Person In The World Keeps Dying
Poisoning rhino horns doesn’t hurt the rhinos, but it may keep poachers away
How Smart Should the President Be? A historical analysis suggests a link between IQ and performance
Neither scientists nor philosophers know for sure what color is.
How Long Should I Hold The Door Open?
Porn actors say proposed safety rules — including protective eye gear — go too far
In study, skipping meals is linked to abdominal weight gain
Sexual harassment of a king penguin by an Antarctic fur seal [PDF]
More than 40 percent of US honeybees died this past year
Why do we appreciate tragic events in art when we don’t appreciate tragic events in life?
Facebook tracks users who are logged-out from Facebook through the social plug-ins (”Like” and “Share” buttons), tracks opted-out Facebook users with a cookie for advertising purposes, tracks users who are not Facebook users but who have visited Facebook’s pages, and so on. Users who wish to protect themselves against tracking by Facebook through social plug-ins are advised to use browser add-ons that block tracking
This is what happens after you die
Anti-NSA pranksters planted tape recorders across New York and published your conversations
Frequent earbud headphone use increases your risk for “hidden hearing loss”: study
Chinese Restaurant Gives Discounts to Customers with Short Skirts
Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day
The secret to overturning negative first impressions
Research shows more sex does not mean more happiness
Researchers have discovered a virus that infects our brains and “makes us more stupid.”
Birth month really does affect personality, says researcher
The Effects of Popping Popcorn Under Reduced Pressure
Why is the number 2,147,483,647 important? Anything larger confuses many computers.
Self-driving truck cleared to drive on US roads for the first time
Why Uber wants to acquire Here, Nokia’s mapping service
Beard Hair Net Sales Are Booming Thanks to Hipster Chef Bros
Man Sues Hospital After Amputated Leg Found in Trash
Films with a female presence earn less at the box office
3D X-ray technique detects 40% more breast cancers than traditional mammography does
Organic milk ‘is less healthy than regular milk and could harm child IQ,’ say researchers
New study suggests that flying may be greener than driving
Water-skipping stones and spheres
The Predecessors of Bitcoin and Their Implications for the Prospect of Virtual Currencies
Slot machines perfected addictive gaming. Now, tech wants their tricks.
Labyrinths have made their way into prisons, spas, wellness centers, and hospitals in recent years
How to choose a price that will maximize your profit
Why Is the Heart Symbol so Anatomically Incorrect?
Researchers track eye movements to sway moral decisions. Altering the timing of a decision on the basis of gaze manipulates choices.
The “holographic principle” asserts that a mathematical description of the universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon.
Mystery of why the Earth hums solved
At a multicourse dinner party in San Francisco, marijuana is paired like wine. But you’ll need a doctor’s note. [NY Times]
Embryonic Twin Sister Discovered in Woman’s Brain
Ladies take and delete five photos before settling on one they feel comfortable posting online
Optimism and pessimism are separate systems influenced by different genes
Resistance to antibiotics found in isolated Amazonian tribe. The find suggests that microbes have long evolved the capability to fight toxins, including antibiotics, and that preventing drug resistance may be harder than scientists thought.
Hacked Sony emails reveal that Sony had pirated books about hacking
In 1992, Diaconis famously proved — along with the mathematician Dave Bayer of Columbia University — that it takes just seven ordinary shuffles to mix a deck of cards. [Quanta | NY Times]
In 1482, at the age of 30, Leonardo da Vinci sent his resume to the Duke of Milan
Baboon bone found in famous Lucy skeleton
The car that knows when you’ll get in an accident before you do
El Salvador jails women for miscarriages and stillbirths.
In the UK, the number of labial reduction procedures has risen five-fold over the past 10 years
Scientists Figure Out Why Your Knuckles Crack
The Shortest-Known Paper Published in a Serious Math Journal
In 1872, Woodhull was the first female candidate for President of the United States. [Thanks GG]
German student makes a freedom of information request to see test papers before exams
Even Women Who Should Know Better Are Attracted to Narcissists
Why do so many people so often say “so”?
Chimps and Humans are Less Similar than We Thought
Shakespeare’s plays reveal his psychological signature
Psychologists can influence people’s moral choices by tracking their gaze
Scientists develop algorithm that can identify and auto-ban internet trolls
Build a Phased-Array Radar in Your Garage that Sees Through Walls
‘4D’ movies bring rain and snow inside the theater
Using TV anachronisms to learn about changes
We took a tourist guide to New York City from 1997 and tried to use it in 2015
The Pimps and Prostitutes of 1970s Times Square
Meet the artist running for election with absolutely no policies
Governor Jerry Brown: Californians to be heavily fined for long showers [Thanks GG]
Convicted operator of revenge porn website sentenced to 18 years in prison
On further questioning, the patient admitted to drinking sixteen 8-oz glasses of iced tea daily
Glowing Tampons Help Detect Sewage Leaks
Fear of spiders became part of our DNA during evolution, say scientists
Cigarette Smoke Makes Superbugs More Aggressive
New adhesive could work underwater, in wet conditions for medicine and industry
Black parents give birth to white baby
Inmate emails own release instructions to prison
Biohackers develop eyedrops that provide night vision
Telepathy isn’t distant science fiction anymore
A pair of engineering students created a fire extinguisher that operates using sound waves.
Observations by two powerful space telescopes have revealed that dark matter is weirder than previously thought. It is invisible, even to itself.
Here I indulge in wide-ranging speculations on the shape of physics, and technology closely related to physics, over the next one hundred years [PDF ]
An object of infinite length but finite volume
Cheeseburger Ball Gag [thanks GG]
