Commercial drone flights are set to become a widespread reality in the United States, starting next year, under a 2012 law passed by Congress. […]

Military drones have slammed into homes, farms, runways, highways, waterways and, in one case, an Air Force C-130 Hercules transport plane in midair. […]

Several military drones have simply disappeared while at cruising altitudes, never to be seen again. […]

The documents describe a multitude of costly mistakes by remote-control pilots. A $3.8 million Predator carrying a Hellfire missile cratered near Kandahar in January 2010 because the pilot did not realize she had been flying the aircraft upside-down.

{ Washington Post | Continue reading }

Yo, the app, has been hacked

Yo is the hottest new app that will leave you scratching your head. The entire premise of the app is to send other users a single word: Yo. […] Without ever having officially launched, co-founder and CEO Or Arbel managed to secure $1.2 million in funding.

{ Tech Crunch | Continue reading }

That $1m funding should cover costs for a year to find out whether Yo really can succeed, Mr Arbel says. […] “It’s not just an app that says Yo,” says Mr Arbel. “It’s a whole new means of communication.”

{ FT | Continue reading }

Individuals often wish to conceal their internal states. Anxiety over approaching a potential romantic partner, feelings of disgust over a disagreeable entrée served at a dinner party, or nervousness over delivering a public speech—all are internal states one may wish, for a variety of reasons, to keep private.

Research suggests that individuals are typically better at disguising their internal states than they believe—i.e., people are prone to an illusion of transparency, or a belief that their thoughts, feelings, and emotions are more apparent to others than is actually the case.

This illusion derives from the difficulty people have in getting beyond their own phenomenological experience when attempting to determine how they appear to others. The adjustment one makes from the ‘‘anchor’’ of one’s own phenomenology, like adjustments to anchors generally, tends to be insufficient. As a result, people exaggerate the extent to which their internal states ‘‘leak out’’ and overestimate the extent to which others can detect their private feelings. […]

As Miller and McFarland (1991) note, “in anxiety-provoking situations, it is often very difficult for people to believe that, despite feeling highly nervous, they do not appear highly nervous.” […]

[T]he realization that one’s nervousness is less apparent than one thinks may be useful in alleviating speech anxiety: If individuals can be convinced that their internal sensations are not manifested in their external appearance, one source of their anxiety can be attenuated, allowing them to relax and even improving the quality of their performance. Thus, speakers who know about the illusion of transparency may tend to give better speeches than speakers who do not.

{ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | PDF }

burnt photograph glued to mirror { Douglas Gordon, Self-portrait of You + Me (Halle Berry), 2006 }

{ 1 | 2 }

The present research provides empirical evidence that drug names may entail implicit promises about their therapeutic power. We asked people to evaluate the perceived efficacy and risk associated with hypothetical drug names and other secondary related measures. We compared opaque (without meaning), functional (targeting the health issue that the drug is meant to solve) and persuasive (targeting the expected outcome of the treatment) names. Persuasive names were perceived as more efficacious and less risky than both opaque and functional names, suggesting that names that target the expected outcome of the drug may bias the perception of risk and efficacy.

{ Applied Cognitive Psychology }

oil on canvas { Vincent van Gogh, Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette , 1886 }

A quarter of all public company deals may involve some kind of insider trading. […] The study [PDF], perhaps the most detailed and exhaustive of its kind, examined hundreds of transactions from 1996 through the end of 2012.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

Jesus Christ could have come to Britain to further his education, according to a Scottish academic.

Tattoo artists sue videogame makers over the copyrights to artworks they’ve inked on athletes that appear in games. [via gettingsome]

Why are countries still using the phony bomb detectors sold by a convicted conman?

Killing a Patient to Save His Life [Thanks Glenn]

The disease has wiped out an estimated 10 percent of the U.S. pig population, helped push pork prices to record highs

The Next Green Revolution May Rely on Microbes

A Re-Evaluation of the Size of the White Shark Population off California, USA

Disturbing Facts About Sunscreen

The history of bear pepper sprays: They played recordings of growling bears and hissing humans. They blared boat horns, blew whistles, engaged strobe lights, and set off firecrackers. Finally, they sprayed chemicals directly into the bear’s face: onion juice, Windex, mustard, and an aerosol-based dog repellent called Halt.

An experience reducing toilet flushing noise reaching adjacent offices

How To Catch A Chess Cheater

How Would Humans Know If They Lived in a Multiverse?

New study suggests the Universe is not expanding at all.

Putting Time In Perspective

How can you tell which are the dominant ethnicities, professions, or genders? One easy test: in our society, dominant groups are the ones people are allowed to insult and lampoon.

Job interviews reward narcissists

Ever since “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted.

The human brain is built for art appreciation, suggests a meta-analysis that looked at studies mapping brain processes linked to the arts. [via gettingsome]

New York Dealers Discuss the Future of Galleries

Feedback From James Joyce’s Submission of Ulysses to His Creative-Writing Workshop

Marilyn Monroe was a huge fan of Joyce. And Magnum photographer Eve Arnold once photographed her reading Ulysses.

O.J. Simpson’s White Bronco Can Apparently Be Rented for Parties

The surprising story of 2 TV chopper pilots who followed the OJ chase 20 years ago

Jennifer in paradise: the story of the first Photoshopped image

It is an object of the present invention to provide a practical and affordable device to disperse cremated remains in a special and honorary manner. […]

At an appointed time, the remains are loaded into one or more mortar launchers mounted on the back of a mobile unit, be it a vehicle or other mobile device, and propelled into the sky. When an appropriate altitude is reached, the explosive device is activated and explodes, causing the ashen remains to disintegrate and cover an expansive area with the ash. The loved ones may feel that the spirit of the departed lingers in that area, allowing surviving family and friends to enjoy the comfort of having a part of the loved one physically and figuratively all around them.

{ Wallace N. Brown via Improbable }

Man with penis stuck in pipe for two days. “It was hot so I was painting the wall in the nude…”

A small proportion of the population are responsible for the vast majority of lies

New study sheds light on what happens to ‘cool’ kids

When It Costs Too Much to Work

It is puzzling that people feel quite unhappy when they become unemployed, while at the same time active labor market policies are needed to bring unemployed back to work more quickly. [PDF ]

Boredom at work can make us more creative

Job interview tips from a woman who went on 100 job interviews in six years

My data show that reductions in the barriers to divorce were associated with reductions in women’s happiness, particularly among older women and women with children.

Do imaginary companions die?

Toilet psychology: Why do men wash their hands less than women?

US to auction 29,656 bitcoins seized from Silk Road

Does the advertising business that built Google actually work?

For non-brand keywords we find that new and infrequent users are positively influenced by ads but that more frequent users whose purchasing behavior is not influenced by ads account for most of the advertising expenses, resulting in average returns that are negative. [PDF]

Gil Elvgren pinup art side-by-side with reference photos

they wanted her funeral to be just as lively

Best friends

The fact that someone is generous is a reason to admire them. The fact that someone will pay you to admire them is also a reason to admire them. But there is a difference in kind between these two reasons: the former seems to be the `right’ kind of reason to admire, whereas the latter seems to be the `wrong’ kind of reason to admire. The Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem is the problem of explaining the difference between the `right’ and the `wrong’ kind of reasons wherever it appears. In this paper I argue that two recent proposals for solving the Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem do not work.

{ Nathaniel Sharadin/Pacific Philosophical Quarterly | Continue reading }

{ Oscar Murillo has recreated a candy-making factory inside a New York gallery }

related { In 1963, Spoerri enacted a sort of performance art called Restaurant de la Galerie J in Paris, for which he cooked on several evenings }

Just as we can design and install digital apps in our electronic devices, we can design and install mindapps in our minds. For philosophy the big-problem is the hegemonic assumption that all good thinking takes place in our ordinary, default mindbody state—wakefulness. Because of this error, the vast extensions of our minds beyond our default state are neglected, and directions for future mind development are stunted, if not outright denied. Multistate theory releases that constriction. By reformulating our minds as variables for experimental philosophy, multistate theory re-asks philosophical questions, extends current issues, and engenders fun speculations. Because psychedelics are the most dramatic example of widely known mindbody psychotechnologies, we will illustrate multistate theory with psychedelics’ contributions

{ Thomas B. Roberts | Continue reading }

This study is related to the use of natural ventilation silencers for the howling and barking (hereafter referred to as “barking”) of dogs. With the spread of nuclear families, low birth rates, and aging populations, pets play an important role in advanced nations. In Japan, the number of complaints and problems caused by the noise created by barking dogs is increasing; it represents the major component of noises in living spaces, thus necessitating some sort of countermeasure. In addition, dogs in veterinary hospitals are housed in connecting cages; one dog’s barking can cause others to bark as well, creating stress in the other animals in the hospital.

One method being considered to remedy this situation is the attachment of a sound insulating board to the opening of the cages and the utilization of forced ventilation. However, the use of sound boards and forced ventilation creates a number of issues, including problems such as hindrance in communicating with animals, noise associated with ventilation intake and output, noise from fans within cages, cost, energy consumption, and the risks of malfunction and power outages; collectively, these problems make this solution unfeasible. […]

We created a prototype based on resonance within a rectangular chamber divided into cells, adding nonwoven sheets to the interior, tail pipes, and coaxial side branch tube silencers to the open end. We then assessed the sound attenuation performance.

{ International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Applications | PDF }

For centuries, scientists studied light to comprehend the visible world. […] But in the late 19th century all that changed […] the whole focus of physics—then still emerging as a distinct scientific discipline—shifted from the visible to the invisible. […] Today its theories and concepts are concerned largely with invisible entities: not only unseen force fields and insensible rays but particles too small to see even with the most advanced microscopes. […] Theories at the speculative forefront of physics flesh out this unseen universe with parallel worlds and with mysterious entities named for their very invisibility: dark matter and dark energy. […]

…the concept of “brane” (short for membrane) worlds. This arises from the most state-of-the-art variants of string theory, which attempt to explain all the known particles and forces in terms of ultra-tiny entities called strings, which can be envisioned as particles extended into little strands that vibrate. Most versions of the theory call for variables in the equations that seem to have the role of extra dimensions in space, so that string theory posits not four dimensions (of time and space) but 11. As physicist and writer Jim Baggott points out, “there is no experimental or observational basis for these assumptions”—the “extra dimensions” are just formal aspects of the equations. However, the latest versions of the theory suggest that these extra dimensions can be extremely large, constituting extra-dimensional branes that are potential repositories for alternative universes separated from our own like the stacked leaves of a book. Inevitably, there is an urge to imagine that these places too might be populated with sentient beings, although that’s optional. The point is that these brane worlds are nothing more than mathematical entities in speculative equations, incarnated, as it were, as invisible parallel universes. […]

Scientists, of course, are not just making things up, while leaning on the convenience of supposed invisibility. They are using dark matter and dark energy, and (if one is charitable) quantum many-worlds and branes, and other imperceptible and hypothetical realms, to perform an essential task: to plug gaps in their knowledge with notions they can grasp.

{ Nautilus | Continue reading }

related { How it works: An ultra-precise thermometer made from light }

New study finds Internet not responsible for dying newspapers

Gentzkow notes that the first fallacy is that online advertising revenues are naturally lower than print revenues, so traditional media must adopt a less profitable business model that cannot support paying real reporters. The second is that the web has made the advertising market more competitive, which has driven down rates and, in turn, revenues. The third misconception is that the Internet is responsible for the demise of the newspaper industry.

{ Chicago Booth | Continue reading }

We all know the awkward feeling when a conversation is disrupted by a brief silence. This paper studies why such moments can be unsettling. We suggest that silences are particularly disturbing if they disrupt the conversational flow.

A mere four-seconds silence (in a six-minute video clip) suffices to disrupt the conversational flow and make one feel distressed, afraid, hurt, and rejected. These effects occur despite participants’ unawareness of the short, single silence. […]

Finally, the present research reveals that although people do not consciously notice brief silences, they are influenced by conversa- tional disfluency in a way quite similar to ostracism experiences (e.g., Williams, 2001). That is, people report feeling more rejected and experience more negative emotions when a conversation is disrupted by a silence, rather than when it flows. Thus, disrupted flow can implicitly elicit feelings of rejection, confirming human sensitivity to social exclusion cues.

{ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology | PDF }

Teen charged as adult due to big penis

In the study, 41 women viewed and handled penises made on a 3D printer

ATM hacked by 14-year-olds using manual found online

A child’s passport doodles did not prevent some guy from leaving South Korea

1 in 10 New Yorkers doesn’t have a bank account

A recently published study by the present authors reported evidence that functional changes in the anterior cingulate cortex within a sample of 96 criminal offenders who were engaged in a Go/No-Go impulse control task significantly predicted their rearrest following release from prison.

Going out in search of love on an empty stomach makes people more attracted to larger partners, a study suggests [Thanks Glenn]

Studies have shown that children can figure out when someone is lying to them, but cognitive scientists from MIT recently tackled a subtler question: Can children tell when adults are telling them the truth, but not the whole truth?

Bartlett incorporated a lie detector into the facial recognition technology. This technology promises to catch in the act anyone who tries to fake a given emotion or feeling.

With distance comes greater wisdom, research finds

How to Criticize with Kindness

Justifying Atrocities: The effect of moral-disengagement strategies on socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting

How Sleep After Learning Enhances Memory

Meditate to increase your gray matter

Mirror Neurons Are Essential, but Not in the Way You Think

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds

“Placebos work really well for allergies” Four things you didn’t know about seasonal allergies

Of 47 foods studied, all but 6 (raspberry, tangerine, cranberry, garlic, onion, and blueberry) satisfied the powerhouse criterion

Mermaids - their biology, culture, and demise [PDF | via Improbable]

There’s a plan to put ancient texts on the moon — just in case Earth suffers a nuclear holocaust or a plague

Scientists Create Shatterproof Phone Screens

The Rise of the $8 Ice Cube

“So Cute I Could Eat It Up”: Priming Effects of Cute Products on Indulgent Consumption [PDF]

How Amazon got a patent on white-background photography

The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales [PDF]

31 countries Google Maps won’t draw borders around

Back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside.

On March 5th, the Associated Press asked: “What are seemingly jet-propelled cats and birds doing in a 16th century German artillery manual?”

Hidden Deep Inside the Oregon Woods Is a Boeing 727 — and It Wasn’t Parked There by Accident

Can a Plane Fly Around the World on Solar Power Alone?

The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins (& Masturbated Them Too)

The American Dream Is Alive—and It’s Really, Really Tiny

Mansplainer: Women’s Support Group

Damage to certain parts of the brain can lead to a bizarre syndrome called hemispatial neglect, in which one loses awareness of one side of their body and the space around it. In extreme cases, a patient with hemispatial neglect might eat food from only one side of their plate, dress on only one side of their body, or shave or apply make-up to half of their face, apparently because they cannot pay attention to anything on that the other side.

Research published last week now suggests that something like this happens to all of us when we drift off to sleep each night.

{ Neurophilosophy/Guardian | Continue reading }

art { Andy Warhol, Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster), (1963) }

In shopping malls, for instance, a firm called Euclid Analytics collects, in its own words, “the presence of the device, its signal strength, its manufacturer (Apple, Samsung, etc.), and a unique identifier known as its Media Access Control (MAC) address.” In London last year, one start-up installed a dozen recycling bins that sniffed MAC addresses from passers-by, effectively tracking people through the area via their phones. Such companies go to great lengths to explain that such information in not personally identifiable—except that repeated studies have shown that this data can indeed be used to infer a great deal about your life.

At the core of such tracking is the MAC address, a unique identification number tied to each device. Devices looking for a Wi-Fi network send out their MAC address to identify themselves. Wireless routers receive the signals—and addresses—even if a connection is never made. Companies like Euclid or its peer Turnstyle Solutions use the data to track footfall in stores, how people move about in shops, how long they linger in certain sections, and how often they return. Store-owners use the information to target shoppers with offers (paywall) or to move high-value items to highly-trafficked parts of the shop, among other things. […]

Apple’s solution, as discovered by a Swiss programmer, is for iOS 8, the new operating system for iPhones which will be out later this year, to generate a random MAC addresses while scanning for networks. That means that companies and agencies that collect such information will not necessarily know when the same device (i.e., person) visits a store twice, or that the same device pops up in stores across the country or the world, suggesting a much-travelled owner.

{ Quartz | Continue reading }

related { With the launch of a health app and data-sharing platform, Apple is betting that tracking your vital signs via smartphone is about to become a booming industry }