Double amputee Iraq war veteran dies after he was flung off roller coaster at 50 mph.
Hitler ordered sex dolls to be sent to Nazi soldiers in an effort to prevent them contracting syphilis from prostitutes.
An exotic-animal owner who made headlines last summer when one of his bears mauled a woman to death has died after apparently choking on a sex toy.
Google Maps sends park-goers to private home.
Father accused of eating child’s eye out. The father was found in the backyard, where he chained himself to a tree and began hacking at his leg with a pickax while yelling incoherently.
Wi-Fi–Hacking Neighbor Sentenced to 18 Years.
Police in Florida said a landlord upset about being owed rent set his tenant’s boxer shorts on fire while he was still wearing them.
Man’s Penis Cut Off By Wife: How Could Doctors Make a New One? related: Woman accused of cutting off husband’s penis said he ‘deserved’ it.
Semi-truck Accident Spills Millions of Bees on Highway. The honeybees were on their way to North Dakota from Bakersfield, California.
How did more than 160 million women go missing from Asia? The simple answer is sex selection, but beyond that, the reasons for a gap half the size of the U.S. population are not widely understood.
The Billion-Dollar Bank Heist. How the financial industry is buying off Washington—and killing reform.
The US may be on the verge of making among the biggest and least-necessary financial mistakes in world history. The eurozone might be on the verge of a fiscal cum financial crisis that destroys not just the solvency of important countries but even the currency union and, at worst, much of the European project.
EU considers ban on ratings agencies, followed ire when Moody’s downgraded Portugal’s rating to “junk” status.
In December, the Los Angeles Times reported — very briefly — that from 2007 to 2008, life expectancy in the United States declined by 0.1 year.
Scientists have found a “superbug” strain of gonorrhea in Japan that is resistant to all recommended antibiotics and say it could transform a once easily treatable infection into a global public health threat.
A daily pill costing 25¢ has dramatically reduced the transmission of HIV to both men and women in three African countries.
‘Last dinosaur’ supports asteroid extinction theory. A new fossil discovery has suggested that dinosaurs were alive right up until the asteroid impact, and did not go extinct gradually due to climate change or changes in sea level, as previous theories have proposed.
A new map suggests that around 1.2 percent of all stars may have been capable of supporting complex life at some point in the history of the galaxy.
The exact origin of our planet’s water, which covers about 70 percent of Earth’s surface, is still a mystery to scientists.
Drug Reverses ‘Accelerated Aging’ in Human Cells. The discovery has implications for the treatment of several diseases—as well as normal aging in healthy people.
Our dreams lose their colour as we get older.
Does crying really make you feel better?
Study reveals how decision-makers complicate choice.
A review published in Perspectives on Psychological Science reports scenarios in which happiness is not a good thing. The authors claim that not all types and degrees of happiness are equal, and that the pursuit of happiness can actually make people feel worse, instead of better.
Study demonstrates how memory can be preserved — and forgetting prevented.
Family meals remain important through teen years, expert says.
Patients who participate in medical trials are rarely asked about their religious beliefs, so we should be grateful for any studies that do. Here’s one.
Male smokers less likely to need joint replacement surgery of hip or knee.
Higher cigarette taxes don’t deter all smokers. Price increases don’t persuade wealthier smokers or those aged 25 to 44 to butt out.
14 Fun Facts About Naked Mole Rats.
Rhesus monkeys have a form of self awareness not previously attributed to them.
How influential are mass media portrayals of chimpanzees in television, movies, advertisements and greeting cards on public perceptions of this endangered species?
From the clothes and sunglasses you wear to computer hard drives and even cleaning products, nanotechnology – often inspired by the natural world – plays a big part in the manufacture of many familiar products.
Researchers presented nine-month old babies with paintings by the cubist painter Picasso and the impressionist Monet. Their first aim was to see if the babies could tell the difference between the two painting styles. Next they checked the babies could distinguish between different paintings by the same artist
In this project we use various visualization techniques to compare artistic developments of Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). (The same techniques can be used to compare any other cultural image sets.)
Algorithms for Solving Rubik’s Cubes.
Jakarta is one of the biggest cities in the world. With 10 million inhabitants, it is the most populous in south east Asia and the 10th biggest on the planet. Lighting such a city at night is an expensive business. Jakarta has over 200,000 street lights, which cost the equivalent of about $17 million dollars to run in 2007. The city has plans to double the number of street lights but would obviously like to minimize costs.
The iPhone 6 May Be Completely Cord Free, Charge Wirelessly.
Why write a quine in one language when you can write one in 11 languages.
How Digital Detectives Deciphered Stuxnet.
Remember our story last week, discussing the copyright issues of monkeys taking photographs of themselves using a photographer’s camera that he had left alone? News agency asked us to remove photos.
Even major oil companies admit that we are reaching peak oil–the point when the maximum rate of petroleum production is reached and begins to go into an unstoppable decline. We may have also reached peak car usage in our major cities.
Is exportation of hazardous waste the future solution, in the face of unsustainable methods? This paper reviews past experiences with such disposal practices and highlights their unsustainability due to the risks of contamination of ecosystems, the food chain, together with ground and drinking water supplies.
This article argues that queering anarchism means complexifying it. Theoretical Polyamory: Some Thoughts on Loving, Thinking, and Queering Anarchism.
Is there a difference between nudity on the internet and online pornography?
Jessi Slaughter, the screen name of an 11-year-old from Florida, is the most recent flotsam of this phenomenon known as cyber-bullying.
It took four generations to build Anheuser-Busch, the biggest brewery in America and the maker of Budweiser beer. And only one for it to come apart.
Ground-breaking pop star David Bowie has been accused of many things during his career, often for perfectly good reasons.
“We’re closing in on a deal,” my agent told me on the phone. The previous Friday, bidding on my first novel had reached six figures.
In 1996, the physicist Alan Sokal perpetrated a hoax on the academic journal Social Text intended to test the intellectual rigor of postmodernist thinking. Jonathan Reynolds reassesses the affair. [the article contains a few errata (like, jacques deleuze)]
Of the five books that I’ve chosen, two of them are analyses of war as a whole, that is to say, Clausewitz On War and Sun Tzu The Art of War. The other three describe the actual experience of war as it is fought, which gives a three-dimensional picture of the whole activity.
The very things that should make politicians less likely to want war – productivity growth, democracy, and trading opportunities – have also made war cheaper. We have more wars, not because we want them, but because we can.
Predictions of the Rapture may have come to nothing but some still insist that the end is nigh. As 2012 approaches, Martin Rees discusses the fate of the planet and its people.
At an unconventional convention in Atlanta in February, conspiracy theorists, UFO researchers, alternative medicine advocates, new patriots, and paranormalists came together to share their “alternative knowledge” with one another and the world.
What happened in the basement of the psych building 40 years ago shocked the world. How do the guards, prisoners and researchers in the Stanford Prison Experiment feel about it now? [Thanks Glenn]
Trinity was founded by Sister Gormly’s religious order, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, in 1897. Many of America’s most powerful women went to a college you’ve never heard of.
The Curious Evolution of Women in Advertising.
Cognitive neuroscientist Ogi Ogas points out, “Men who send off penis pictures probably aren’t thinking at all, they’re responding to an unconscious, evolutionary urge likely inherited from our primate ancestors.”
Sand-Castle Consultants. Just one consulting gig can garner thousands of dollars, while building a birthday sand castle in an hour can yield a fee of $300.
If there’s one thing most people know about silica gel, the unseen substance that inhabits those little white packets inserted in new shoe boxes, purses, and Asian snack foods, it’s that you’re not supposed to eat it. OK, so, what happens if you eat it? Nothing.
Bone china is a type of porcelain that is composed of bone ash, feldspathic material and kaolin. [Thanks James]
Letter of William MacFarland, product marketing manager for Campbell’s Tomato Soup, to Andy Warhol.
Instead of providing rules, which often render safe but bland results, we believe that ultimately any font can be successfully combined with any other font. Historia Type Specimen.
FLY TO THE HAMPTONS OFF-PEAK FOR AS LITTLE AS $29.
This map of Manhattan, for example, follows a similar pattern to Fischer’s previous map on where tourists flock. Flickr and Twitter Mapped Together.
A guide for young ladies in Manhattan from 1939.
Manhattan in the 1940s. [pics] Related: New York 75 years from now.
Is Walt Disney’s frozen body buried under Disneyland?
9 PERSONS MAX
Russian Ad Watch: selling cigarettes to teen girls.
Snooker ball and ball.
Best two-second YouTube video of the week.
Broken Wear, now with 3 extra episodes. [video]
“I had an orgasm in an MRI scanner.”
Why Shouldn’t You Shop While Hungry?
