A man who claims to be a time traveller has reportedly passed a lie-detector test while revealing weirdly specific things about the future

We remember a small proportion of our experiences as events. Are these events selected because they are useful and can be proven true, or rather because they are unexpected?

a group of neuroscientists report that they scanned the brains of people watching Memento in order to study memory processes

Spoilers don’t spoil stories. Contrary to popular wisdom, they actually seem to enhance enjoyment. [study]

Neurobiology of mobile-device habits stems from a healthy human need to socialize, rooted in evolution, McGill researchers find. Healthy urges can become unhealthy addictions.

Never drinkers and heavy drinkers had highest white matter lesion burden. Light to moderate drinking is associated with indices of better white matter health.

Health benefits of same-sex partnering are smaller than for opposite-sex coupling

We find that the LED streetlight program is associated with a lagged increase in breast cancer mortality

Dishonesty plays a large role in the economy. Causes for (dis)honest behavior seem to be based partially on external rewards, and partially on internal rewards. We propose and test a theory of self-concept maintenance that allows people to engage to some level in dishonest behavior, thereby benefiting from external benefits of dishonesty, while maintaining their positive view about themselves in terms of being honest individuals.

Contracts in all areas of business routinely include vague provisions. Parties often choose to define performance on the basis of terms such as “best efforts,” “good faith,” or “reasonable cause.” The widespread use of vague provisions places courts center stage. [PDF]

banks are so opaque that even insiders cannot see through the opacity when bad things happen + Are banks opaque? Evidence from insider trading

Stock market forces can be modeled with a quantum harmonic oscillator. By applying their model to seven years of data, researchers show that the quantum harmonic oscillator model outperforms other quantum models.

Zzyzx, California, Or the Biggest Health Spa Scam in American History

Even Jellyfish Sleep

A transcriber on the Isle of Man can decipher almost anything

Foot binding became popular as a means of displaying status (women from wealthy families, who did not need their feet to work, could afford to have them bound). Feet altered by binding were called lotus feet.

Stockholm, September 3, 1967, after Sweden changed from driving on the left-hand side of the road to driving on the right

“In its relentless effort to undermine this administration, the media has completely ignored the fact that Lake Huron and Lake Ontario were formed when the gigantic, thundering footfalls of the president made impressions in the ground during a stroll along the U.S.-Canada border,” said Huckabee Sanders

please join me at the funeral for art criticism

every day the same again | February 14th, 2018