Every day, the same, again
No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found. [US government denies mermaids exist after documentary mix-up.]
Survey: 25% of Female Facebook Users Admit to Posting Unflattering Photos of Friends on Purpose .
Fed-up Lebanese protest against protests.
A Korean Rice Liquor Is Far And Away The World’s Best-Selling Booze.
Meet the 14-year-old who unlike her mother and four sisters is refusing to have breast implants.
Drug-Sniffing Drones Are Flying Over Bolivia, the New Cocaine Underdog.
Alex White, a drug dealer in Atlanta with a side business as an informant, had a crisis of conscience. What do you do when the cops you work for are dirtier than you are? [NY Times]
CBS Reporter Lara Logan thought she was going to die in Tahrir Square when she was sexually assaulted by a mob on the night that Hosni Mubarak’s government fell in Cairo. [NY Times]
Big Banks Have Become Mafia-Style Criminal Enterprises.
International timekeepers added a second to the clock at midnight universal time Saturday, June 30, going into July 1.
How Exactly Could a Squid ‘Inseminate’ Your Mouth?
We think more rationally in a foreign language.
Embarrassing Conditions: Waking up with an Italian Accent.
What’s it Like to be a Man with an Eating Disorder?
Breast-Feeding Won’t Make Your Children Smarter.
Sleep deprivation affects the immune system in a similar way as physical stress.
A moral argument against the war on drugs.
Physicists seem to have finally trapped their most-desired quarry: the Higgs boson, the last undiscovered fundamental particle in the standard model that underpins modern physics. More: Higgs boson: physics professors answer your questions live.
According to this study, information gleaned from interrogational torture is very likely to be unreliable, and when torture techniques are employed, they are likely to be used too frequently and too harshly.
Reflections on 10 Years of Countering Terrorism. [CIA.gov]
What can surnames tell us about the culture, genetics and history of our society? That is the question being answered by Chinese researchers who have traced the evolution of surnames across China. 1.28 billion people share 7,327 surnames
Playing cards, used for games and magic, are so familiar, yet we know remarkably little about the way we perceive and think about them. Are some cards more memorable than others? Are some easier to identify?
How Headphones Changed the World.
How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money? [NY Times]
New York’s Monument to Gentrification: The High Line represents the high-water mark of the hipster aesthetic, which venerates poverty and decay as signifiers of authenticity.
Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.
Google search techniques. [via ZunguZungu]
What is the Fibonacci Sequence and why is it famous?
What If All of America’s Toilets Were Flushed Simultaneously?
