Ike-Jime is Japanese fish killing technique. In general, Japanese technique is the most advanced in the world, although Australia and New Zealand are pioneering fish anesthetics that advance fish killing even more. Two reasons to care about how your fish are killed: proper technique insures the best quality fish, and is the most humane. […]

The less trauma a fish goes through before and during slaughter, the higher the quality of the meat. Simple as that. […] Compared to red meat and poultry, fish muscle is delicate. It needs all the structure it can get. So unlike red meat, where we like a little protein breakdown to enhance tenderness, anything that breaks down the structure of fish muscle is bad. Stress causes fish muscle tissue to break down.

Stress before or during slaughter –whether from overcrowding, struggling in a net, being lifted into the air, fighting on the end of a line, or even the long term stress from poor aquaculture practice– results in more exhausted fish. The muscles of exhausted fish have a lower pH (due to lactic acid production in the muscle). That low pH enhances the action of enzymes present in the muscle that break down protein. One study even claims that stress increases the amount of those enzymes present in addition to making them more effective. Higher stress also leads to more stress-related compounds in the blood, which some studies show degrade muscle. Finally, tired and stressed fish have less available ATP in their muscles. ATP is the energy source that makes biological systems run. After an animal dies, its muscles remain pliable for as long as it has some reserves of ATP. Once the ATP is used up, the muscles tense and will not loosen up –this is called rigor-mortis. Rigor-mortis in fish can be strong enough to rip apart the connections between muscle fibers, leading to mushy meat. Muscles from stressed fish with low ATP reserves go into rigor-mortis faster and harder than muscles from rested, unstressed fish with more ATP. […]

As soon as a fish is pulled from the water it should be dealt a death blow. Traditional technique is a sharp whack to the head –not such a good technique. Blows to the head are prone to error, and they don’t kill, they stun. Standard Japanese Ike-Jime technique on small fish involves severing the spinal cord and blood vessels between the head and the body –an OK technique as far as preserving fish muscle goes, but not so humane.

{ Cooking Issues | Continue reading | via James }

We’ve all had that experience of going purposefully from one room to another, only to get there and forget why we made the journey. Four years ago, researcher Gabriel Radvansky and his colleagues stripped this effect down, showing that the simple act of passing through a doorway induces forgetting.

Now psychologists at Knox College, USA, have taken things further, demonstrating that merely imagining walking through a doorway is enough to trigger increased forgetfulness.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

photo { Barbara Klemm, Louvre, Paris, 1987 }

Conman sold urine as whiskey

Certain wavelengths of visible light are nearly 100% lethal to insects. Blue LEDs could be a new form of pest control.

Unhealthy people more likely to vote for attractive candidates

Solar activity affects fertility across generations in historical Norway. More sun means fewer children and grandchildren.

Antibiotics: US discovery labelled ‘game-changer’ for medicine

Does sleeping naked prevent diabetes?

They discreetly asked me if I would mind waiting a few minutes because Yoko Ono (!!!) was just finishing a treatment. Cryotherapy is a process in which you subject the body to extreme cold for a short period of time in order to reduce inflammation.

Neuroscience research fails to support claims that excessive pornography consumption causes brain damage

Amongst heterosexuals, men are almost twice as likely to be upset by sexual infidelity as women, a new study finds. Heterosexual women, meanwhile, are much more likely to be upset by emotional infidelity.

New research suggests that reflecting on a breakup may help heal the heart.

Experiments to explore how we might artificially cool the Earth—commonly called geoengineering.

The Satellite Search for Genghis Khan’s Tomb

The Phantom Cannibal (Part Two) [Previously: Part One]

The scam has been dubbed virtual kidnapping

In the past few years, street gangs have been retreating from public view all over Southern California.

Nicknamed “stingrays,” the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts.

A.I. still can’t recognize these simple pictures.

Saving everything in case it might be useful later is a recipe for disaster.

Radio, not YouTube, was still the top method of music discovery in the US last year

Google sees biggest search traffic drop since 2009 as Yahoo gains ground. The increase comes after Firefox switched its default search from Google to Yahoo.

The First Quantum Art Exhibition in Space

How NASA and other space agencies colorize space photos

U.S. ambassador to Finland

In an experiment researchers showed that the human brain uses memories to make predictions about what it expects to find in familiar contexts. When those subconscious predictions are shown to be wrong, the related memories are weakened and are more likely to be forgotten. And the greater the error, the more likely you are to forget the memory.

{ Lunatic Laboratories | Continue reading }

“Withdrawal is the most problematic for relationships,” Sanford said. “It’s a defensive tactic that people use when they feel they are being attacked, and there’s a direct association between withdrawal and lower satisfaction overall with the relationship.”

Meanwhile, “passive immobility” — expecting your partner to be a mind-reader — is a tactic people use when they feel anxious in a relationship, and it makes it especially difficult for couples to make progress toward resolving conflicts. But it may not be as harmful down the line as withdrawal, he said.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

art { Mel Ramos, Elephant Seal, 1970 }

Our team has analyzed 144 of AQI’s and the ISI’s own financial and managerial documents. Captured by coalition and Iraqi forces between 2005 and 2010, these include scans of typed documents, as well as electronic files found on hard drives, USB sticks, and other media. Among them are spreadsheets listing the qualifications and training of hundreds of fighters, details on thousands of individual salary payments, and massive lists of itemized expenditures. […]

The group’s financing tactics, relying on extortion and criminal rackets, put it directly in conflict with local economic elites. […] Moreover, the way it managed human resources and finances—requiring numerous signatures and oversight—reflected high levels of internal mistrust. […]

The negative implication of our findings is that even those vulnerabilities don’t make the group easy to completely eradicate. From 2006 through 2009 the ISI was devastated by US and allied forces, Iraqi security forces, and local Sunni militias; during some months US Special Operations forces alone conducted 10 or more raids per night against the group. It stopped being a strategic threat, but it didn’t disappear. Its organizational structure was robust enough that it could go to ground, survive, and wait for the right circumstances to come roaring back.

{ Boston Globe | Continue reading }

related { One of the Islamic State’s senior commanders reveals exclusive details of the terror group’s origins inside an Iraqi prison – right under the noses of their American jailers. | The Guardian | full story }

Some people will tell you that they have a clear sense of who they are, and that their sense of self is stable over time. Psychologists refer to this as having high “self-concept clarity.” In a new study, Jean Guerrettaz and Robert Arkin shine a spotlight on these self-proclaimed self-knowers. The researchers find that their confidence is often fragile, and that somewhat paradoxically, it is people confident in their sense of self whose self-esteem is most undermined by challenging questions about who they are.

{ BPS | Continue reading }

Galleries owned by Larry Gagosian, the powerful and well-connected dealer who has spent his career goosing the prices of contemporary art higher and higher: 14.

Restaurants owned by the chef Masayoshi Takayama, who has spent his career charging more for Japanese food than anyone else in the United States: five.

Restaurants the two men own together: one, Kappo Masa, in the basement below Mr. Gagosian’s Madison Avenue gallery. […]

Now three months old, Kappo Masa is not the most expensive restaurant in New York. That distinction belongs to Mr. Takayama’s home base, Masa, in the Time Warner Center. (Price of dinner for one before tax, tip and drinks: $450.) Still, it is expensive in a way that’s hard to forget either during or after the meal. The cost of eating at Kappo Masa is so brutally, illogically, relentlessly high, and so out of proportion to any pleasure you may get, that large numbers start to seem like uninvited and poorly behaved guests at the table. […]

Stars I am giving it: zero.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

[TheJosh]
If I go every other day I will be at the gym 4-5 times a week, is that over training?
I typically work out for 60-90 minutes, I push my self and raise the weight each week.

[…]

steviekm3
That makes no sense. There are only 7 days in a week. If you go every other day that is 3.5 times a week.

TheJosh
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday. That is 4 days.
How do you go 3.5 times? Do a half workout or something? lol

Justin-27
7x in 2 weeks = 3.5 times a week, genius.
And yeah, 3x a week, full body workouts are good.

TheJosh
I never said anything about going exactly 7 times, like I said, if I go every other day, that is 4 DAYS A WEEK. How hard is that to comprehend?
Week 1 - Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Week 2 - Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.
8 DAYS IN 2 WEEKS
In your terms,
8x in 2 weeks = 4 times a week, genius.
All Muscle and No Brains? lol

steviekm3
You double counted Sunday - that is 2 weeks plus 1 day.
Did you fail grade 2 math ?
PLUS your old post said 4 or 5 times a week. Now you just neglect to mention the 5.
Grow up and admit when you are wrong. Believe me you will get a a lot further in life this way.

TheJosh
Are you retarded?
Maybe you should look at a calander, I didn’t double count sunday, my two weeks started and ended on sunday, exactly 14 days.
What don’t you understand?
EDIT - Here is a Calender, I made little dots for each day so you could comprehend.

Justin-27
Dude THAT IS 15 DAYS!!!!!! You can’t have a week go Sun-Sat, then Sun-Sun. Look at the damn pic you posted, count the days what do they equal?!?!?! FIFTEEN!
I was right, 3.5 x a week, and so was the first guy to post it, and you my bright friend are el wrongo.

[…]

TheJosh
There is 7 days in a week, if you workout every other day, you work out 4 days a week, how hard is that to ****ing comprehend?!
Ill do it out in 4 weeks for you, maybe it will make more sense?
Week 1 - Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Week 2 - Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday
Week 3 - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday
Week 4 - Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday
Week 5 - Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday
Week 6 - Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday
No matter how you look at it, if you workout every other day, you work out 4 times a week.
[…]
A week is sunday-sunday.
I think you just don’t know how to count, it’s alright, I won’t tell anyone. lol
Sunday-Saturday is only 6 days, do you have 6 days weeks where you live?

Justin-27
Yes, you workout 4x the first week, then 3 the next.
I’m right, you’re a effing moron.
[…]
Sun-Sat is only 6 days?!
Sunday ONE
Monday TWO
Tuesday THREE
Wednesday FOUR
Thursday FIVE
Friday SIX
Saturday SEVEN
Arizona public schools=FAIL

{ Bodybuilding.com | Continue reading }

Monozygotic twins are considered being genetically identical, therefore they cannot be differentiated using standard forensic DNA testing. Here we describe how identification of extremely rare mutations by ultra-deep next generation sequencing can solve such cases. We sequenced DNA from sperm samples of two twins and from a blood sample of the child of one twin. Bioinformatics analysis revealed five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) present in the twin father and the child, but not in the twin uncle.

Our results give experimental evidence for the hypothesis that rare mutations will occur early after the human blastocyst has split into two, the origin of twins, and that such mutations will be carried on into somatic tissue and the germline. The method provides a solution to solve paternity and forensic cases involving monozygotic twins as alleged fathers or originators of DNA traces.

{ FSI Genetics }

The Random Darknet Shopper is an automated online shopping bot which we provide with a budget of $100 in Bitcoins per week. Once a week the bot goes on shopping spree in the deep web where it randomly choses and purchases one item and has it mailed to us.

DNA is generally regarded as the basic building block of life itself. In the most fundamental sense, DNA is nothing more than a chemical compound, albeit a very complex and peculiar one. DNA is an information-carrying molecule. The specific sequence of base pairs contained in a DNA molecule carries with it genetic information, and encodes for the creation of particular proteins. When taken as a whole, the DNA contained in a single human cell is a complete blueprint and instruction manual for the creation of that human being.

In this article we discuss myriad current and developing ways in which people are utilizing DNA to store or convey information of all kinds. For example, researchers have encoded the contents of a whole book in DNA, demonstrating the potential of DNA as a way of storing and transmitting information. In a different vein, some artists have begun to create living organisms with altered DNA as works of art. Hence, DNA is a medium for the communication of ideas. Because of the ability of DNA to store and convey information, its regulation must necessarily raise concerns associated with the First Amendment’s prohibition against the abridgment of freedom of speech.

New and developing technologies, and the contemporary and future social practices they will engender, necessitate the renewal of an approach towards First Amendment coverage that takes into account the purposes and values incarnated in the Free Speech Clause of the Constitution.

{ Charleston School of Law | Continue reading }

photo { Bruce Davidson }

Machiavellianism is a personality trait characterized by a manipulative interpersonal style, emotional detachment and suspicion of others. Individuals with high levels of Machiavellianism navigate through their social relationships with  protective self-monitoring, external orientated thinking and confidence in their ability to deceive which facilitates their willingness to exploit others for their own self-serving goal. Not surprisingly, research has found that Machiavellianism relates to lower quality friendships in adulthood, including relational aggression in online relationships. […]

Previous research has established the importance of parental bonding (i.e.,  parental care and overprotection) for the development of personality traits and adult relationships. The current study investigated the influence of recalled parenting on the development of Machiavellianism and adult friendship quality. […] Path modeling suggests that decreased maternal care and increased paternal overprotection relate to Machiavellianism which is associated with lower adult friendship quality.

{ Individual Differences Research | Continue reading }

UK couple stranded in New York after baby arrived 11 weeks early face potential £130,000 medical bill

Art critic Julian Spalding banned from Damien Hirst’s Tate exhibition after calling him a talentless conman

Two-thirds of cancer cases due to “bad luck”

Arsenic in drinking water linked to 50 percent drop in breast cancer deaths

Scientists ‘edit’ DNA to correct adult genes and cure diseases

Researchers discover Asian fanged frog that don’t lay eggs but gives birth to tadpoles

Cleaning waste water with algae

Science Word of the Day: Kleptothermy

We conclude that early socio-economic conditions predict, to some extent, facial attractiveness in young adulthood.

Two centuries before the Swinging Sixties the weakening of social customs caused by the Industrial Revolution led to a modest transformation in people’s sexual behaviour

In September, the right-wing scandal sheet Keiten Shimbun obtained the photo of the vice chairman of Japan’s Olympic Committee sitting next to the head of Japan’s largest yakuza syndicate

When he was growing up, Spartz said, his parents made him read “four short biographies of successful people every single day.

Why Some Things Are Popular

What is it like to be a blind film critic?

Why do People Behave Immorally When Drunk?

Is the Secret Service responsible for keeping the president from getting drunk?

Why is there a worm in bottles of tequila?

How to spot a liar [TED talk]

CIA takes blame for more than half of UFO sightings in late 1950s and 60s

JFK and 9/11 in Back to the Future - Hidden Messages In Plain Sight

[T]he Inuit, the Masai, and the Samburu people of Uganda all originally ate diets that were 60-80% fat and yet were not obese and did not have hypertension or heart disease.

The hypothesis that saturated fat is the main dietary cause of cardiovascular disease is strongly associated with one man, Ancel Benjamin Keys, a biologist at the University of Minnesota. […] Keys launched his “diet-heart hypothesis” at a meeting in New York in 1952, when the United States was at the peak of its epidemic of heart disease, with his study showing a close correlation between deaths from heart disease and proportion of fat in the diet in men in six countries (Japan, Italy, England and Wales, Australia, Canada, and the United States). Keys studied few men and did not have a reliable way of measuring diets, and in the case of the Japanese and Italians he studied them soon after the second world war, when there were food shortages. Keys could have gathered data from many more countries and people (women as well as men) and used more careful methods, but, suggests Teicholz, he found what he wanted to find. […]

At a World Health Organization meeting in 1955 Keys’s hypothesis was met with great criticism, but in response he designed the highly influential Seven Countries Study, which was published in 1970 and showed a strong correlation between saturated fat (Keys had moved on from fat to saturated fat) and deaths from heart disease. Keys did not select countries (such as France, Germany, or Switzerland) where the correlation did not seem so neat, and in Crete and Corfu he studied only nine men. […]

[T]he fat hypothesis led to a massive change in the US and subsequently international diet. One congressional staffer, Nick Mottern, wrote a report recommending that fat be reduced from 40% to 30% of energy intake, saturated fat capped at 10%, and carbohydrate increased to 55-60%. These recommendations went through to Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which were published for the first time in 1980. (Interestingly, a recommendation from Mottern that sugar be reduced disappeared along the way.)

It might be expected that the powerful US meat and dairy lobbies would oppose these guidelines, and they did, but they couldn’t counter the big food manufacturers such as General Foods, Quaker Oats, Heinz, the National Biscuit Company, and the Corn Products Refining Corporation, which were both more powerful and more subtle. In 1941 they set up the Nutrition Foundation, which formed links with scientists and funded conferences and research before there was public funding for nutrition research. […]

Saturated fats such as lard, butter, and suet, which are solid at room temperature, had for centuries been used for making biscuits, pastries, and much else, but when saturated fat became unacceptable a substitute had to be found. The substitute was trans fats, and since the 1980s these fats, which are not found naturally except in some ruminants, have been widely used and are now found throughout our bodies. There were doubts about trans fats from the very beginning, but Teicholz shows how the food companies were highly effective in countering any research that raised the risks of trans fats. […]

Another consequence of the fat hypothesis is that around the world diets have come to include much more carbohydrate, including sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which is cheap, extremely sweet, and “a calorie source but not a nutrient.”2 5 25 More and more scientists believe that it is the surfeit of refined carbohydrates that is driving the global pandemic of obesity, diabetes, and non-communicable diseases.

{ The BMJ | Continue reading }

related { Beware the Man of One Study }

image { Isa Genzken, X-ray, 1991 }

Woman stabs son on Christmas over cell phone

Colorado couple arrested for stealing neighbors’ Christmas decorations, displaying them in yard (w/ mugshots)

Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017

Not as many married couples as expected are taking advantage of a loosening in China’s one-child policy that allows them to have two children if one spouse is an only child.

Researchers identify a few cases where identical twins’ genes behave differently

Why you can live a normal life with half a brain

The compound behind all those stories about red wine being good for you

Many people use too many plastic bags, drive their cars too much, eat too much meat or bluefin tuna, drink bottled water … Small Impacts and Imperceptible Effects

Possible alternative explanation for dark energy [previously]

Hundreds of Portuguese Buses and Taxis Are Also Wi-Fi Routers (and collect data for city planners)

Chrisdien Deny, a retail chain with more than 500 locations across China, sells belts, shoes and clothing with an “Italian style” — and a logo with the same font as Christian Dior’s. [NY Times]

How Google Cracked House Number Identification in Street View

They once called him “Sweden’s Hannibal Lector.” 

How the “Paul McCartney is Dead” Hoax Started at an American College Newspaper and Went Viral (1969)

Take life by the balls

Diane. Wife’s kid sister. Well, half sister. Dad was the sperm donor. Who knows who the fuck she is. Collects ribbon.

{ Richard Prince }

Imagine receiving a text message that one of the world’s most prominent artists had appropriated your work, divorcing it of its original meaning. That’s exactly what happened to Audrey Wollen, a Los Angeles-based artist whose recreation of Diego Velázquez’s ‘The Rokeby Venus’ as a self-portrait was recently used by Richard Prince as part of his New Portraits series. […]

I was really angry, but not at all surprised. An old, white, successful, straight male artist feeling entitled to the image of a young female body is not surprising. My photograph wasn’t included in his show at Gagosian, but by distributing it through the internet under his name without any consent, he completely erased my authorship and identity. I really was just a photograph of a naked girl, up for grabs. Maybe I’m idealistic, but I don’t think art should simply reiterate the status quo. […] I think a lot of people mistake Prince’s work as purely an issue of appropriation - like, if you condemn Prince, you condemn appropriation on principle. That’s not the point: Appropriation is chill, as long as the person doing the appropriating is not the person in power. What Prince is doing is colonising and profiting off a territory of the internet that was created by a community of young girls, who, needless to say, do not have the cultural space Prince has. Selecting specific bodies from a sea of images, amputating them from their context, and then naming yourself the owner of those bodies: that isn’t just boring art, that verges on predatory and violent behavior.

{ Audrey Wollen | Continue reading }

The NSA’s inspector general last year detailed 12 cases of “intentional misuse” of intelligence authorities from 2003 to 2013 […] Those cases included a member of a U.S. military intelligence unit who violated policy by obtaining the communications of his wife, who was stationed in another country. After a military proceeding, the violator was punished by a reduction in rank, 45 days of extra duty and forfeiture of half of his pay for two months, according to the letter. In a 2003 case, a civilian employee ordered intelligence collection “of the telephone number of his foreign-national girlfriend without an authorized purpose for approximately one month” to determine whether she was being faithful to him, according to the letter. The employee retired before an investigation could be completed.

{ Bloomberg | Continue reading }

photo { Olivia Locher, Lucifer Rising, 2014 }