Swiping is dead
Flashback: ‘Tinder for threesomes’ gets $500K investment (2015), Threesome app CEO: ‘Swiping is dead’ (2017)
We quickly and irresistibly form impressions of what other people are like based solely on how their faces look. We collected over 1 million human judgments to power a model that can both predict and manipulate first impressions of diverse and naturalistic faces
Perceptions of Authenticity Are Systematically Biased and Not Accurate
VR Researchers Have Basically Figured Out How to Simulate the Feel of Kisses
Despite no differences in general intelligence, there are sex differences in specific abilities. Reliable and meaningful female advantages are found in processing speed and writing. Reliable and meaningful male advantages are found in visual processing.
Intuition: When is it right to trust your gut instincts?
We show that free-flying honeybees can visually acquire the capacity to differentiate between odd and even quantities […] This study thus demonstrates that a task, previously only shown in humans, is accessible to a brain with a comparatively small numbers of neurons.
New study suggests “comedowns” associated with MDMA are not a result of the drug itself
Time was remembered as passing significantly more quickly than normal during alcohol, cocaine and MDMA use. Marijuana was associated with time passing more slowly than normal.
Got food cravings? What’s living in your gut may be responsible
All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites
While there is growing consensus on the physiological functions of spontaneous yawning in neurovascular circulation and brain cooling, far less is known about how the act of yawning alters the cognition and behaviour of observers. Recent studies in animal behaviour, psychology and neuroscience now provide evidence that yawns serve as a cue that improves the vigilance of observers, and that contagious yawning functions to synchronize and/or coordinate group activity patterns.
Snapchat’s been booming. The app now has 332 million daily users, up 18% from last year, beating analysts’ expectations to start 2022. With little fanfare, it’s sailed past Twitter, serving 115 million more daily users than Twitter’s 217 million, despite the latter’s cultural significance.
Mr. Kondo is married to a doll of Hatsune Miku. “When we’re together, she makes me smile,” he said in a recent interview. “In that sense, she’s real.” Mr. Kondo is one of thousands of people in Japan who have entered into unofficial marriages with fictional characters in recent decades. [NY Times]
I’m what’s called a “Closer” for the online-dating service ViDA (Virtual Dating Assistants). Men and women (though mostly men) from all over the world pay this company to outsource the labor and tedium of online dating. […] “Profile Writers” create seductive and click-worthy profiles based on facts our clients have supplied about themselves, and “Closers,” who log in to clients’ dating accounts at least twice a day to respond to messages from matches. […] Several times a day, female staffers receive Photo Ranking Requests, in which we rank new clients’ photos in order of attractiveness. This helps Matchmakers select which photos to use when building or updating a client’s dating profile. […] After the Matchmakers have made contact, the Closers then step in to keep up the flirty banter and, hopefully, get their client a date. Clients are sent weekly emails to alert them of numbers we’ve scored or, for Platinum clients, when and where to go for a date we’ve arranged.
Morgan Stanley advised Elon Musk on his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (TWTR). Investment banks usually get about a 1% to 3% cut of the value of a merger deal, which is split among all the banks involved. Based on the $44 billion purchase price, that works out to a range of $440 million to $1.3 billion.
Re-thinking the smartphone addiction: an allocative hypothesis — I propose the allocative hypothesis behind the problematic use of the smartphone, where the constant proximity of this device, following the hypothesis of cognitive extension, favors the extension of mind wandering, resulting in a decrease in its regulatory potential, especially but not exclusively associated with daily activities.
Nike and Rtfkt take on digital fashion with first “Cryptokick” sneaker
These green books are poisonous—and one may be on a shelf near you A toxic green pigment was once used to color everything from fake flowers to book covers. Now a museum conservator is working to track down the noxious volumes.
Balloon detects first signs of a ‘sound tunnel’ in the sky
Researchers develop a paper-thin loudspeaker
the slowest and longest music piece ever, is being performed for 639 years
When a knife thrower hurls blades around a woman secured to a spinning wheel, it’s called the Wheel of Death. So what do you call it when that wheel is entirely hidden by a paper veil?
