“I looked up at the shower head, and it was as if the water droplets had stopped in mid-air” […]

Although Baker is perhaps the most dramatic case, a smattering of strikingly similar accounts can be found, intermittently, in medical literature. There are reports of time speeding up – so called “zeitraffer” phenomenon – and also more fragmentary experiences called “akinetopsia”, in which motion momentarily stops.

For instance, travelling home one day, one 61-year-old woman reported that the movement of the closing train doors, and fellow passengers, was in slow motion and “broken up”, as if in “freeze frames”. A 58-year-old Japanese man, meanwhile, seemed to be experiencing life like a badly dubbed movie; in conversation, he found that although others’ voices sounded normal, they were out of sync with their faces. […]

One explanation for this double-failure is that our motion perception system has its own stopwatch, recording how fast things are moving across our vision – and when this is disrupted by brain injury, the world stands still. For Baker, stepping into the shower might have exacerbated the problem, since the warm water would have drawn the blood away from the brain to the extremities of the body, further disturbing the brain’s processing.

Another explanation comes from the discovery that our brain records its perceptions in discrete “snapshots”, like the frames of a film reel. “The healthy brain reconstructs the experience and glues together the different frames,” says Rufin VanRullen at the French Centre for Brain and Cognition Research in Toulouse, “but if brain damage destroys the glue, you might only see the snapshots.”

{ BBC | Continue reading }

Polygyny rates are higher in western Africa than in eastern Africa. The African slave trades help explain this difference. More male slaves were exported in the transatlantic slave trades from western Africa, while more female slaves were exported in the Indian Ocean slave trades from eastern Africa. The slave trades led to prolonged periods of abnormal sex ratios, which affected the rates of polygyny across Africa.

{ Economic Development and Cultural Change | Continue reading }

Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women’s Issues?

Using new data on the family lives of U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, we find that, conditional on the number of children a judge has, judges with daughters consistently vote in a more feminist fashion on gender issues than judges who have only sons. This result survives a number of robustness tests and appears to be driven primarily by Republican judges. More broadly, this result demonstrates that personal experiences influence how judges make decisions, and this is the first article to show that empathy may indeed be a component in how judges decide cases.

{ American Journal of Political Science | Continue reading }

New York lawmakers approve ban on ‘tiger selfies’

A Norwegian football fan has scooped a cool £500 after betting on Luis Suarez to bite somebody at the World Cup in Brazil.

About 20% of the population are “highly sensitive people” (HSP), who display heightened awareness to subtle stimuli - whether positive or negative - and process information more thoroughly.

Not everyone wants cheering up, new study suggests. People with low self-esteem usually prefer negative validation.

How smartphones and sitting at a computer can ruin your posture

Personality May Affect Posture, Back Pain

A 1999 outbreak of diarrheal illness affected 44% of patrons (an estimated 4800 people) who visited a new local interactive water fountain in a beachside park. Water recreation illnesses

If our understanding of the physics behind the recently-discovered Higgs boson is correct, our universe shouldn’t exist. That is, however, if another cosmological hypothesis is real, a hypothesis that is currently undergoing intense scrutiny in light of the BICEP2 results.

Human Language Is Biased Towards Happiness, Say Computational Linguists

The concept of “mother” in linguistics

When you visit BuzzFeed, they record lots of information about you.

Wikipedia editors hit with $10 million defamation lawsuit

How did China become the world’s leader in luxury goods sales — a category that relies heavily on IP rights for its market value — while at the same time achieving unchallenged global dominance in “IP theft”?

As mobile devices are used to perform more financial transactions, cybercriminals are taking greater interest.

Chinese hospitals introduce hands-free automatic ’sperm extractor’ for donors

Realism is a term that can be understood only by contrasting it with an opposite term, such as idealism or representationalism. But representationalism has indeed to presuppose something that is represented, in order for the representation to be possible at all. […]

Our grasp on reality is always determined by our own way of accessing it. A realism which can take hold of this presupposition is to be called phenomenological realism. In this sense, reality is always given only in representation, that is, mediated by our access to it, but is not itself representation.

It is an objectivity opposed to ourself, it has a particular place and it appears, but its appearance does not belong to the subject, it is simply there. Therefore, appearances are spatial and have to be described as such.

{ Meta Journal | PDF }

It’s a question that has plagued philosophers and scientists for thousands of years: Is free will an illusion?

Now, a new study suggests that free will may arise from a hidden signal buried in the “background noise” of chaotic electrical activity in the brain, and that this activity occurs almost a second before people consciously decide to do something. […]

Experiments performed in the 1970s also raised doubts about human volition. Those studies, conducted by the late neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, revealed that the region of the brain that plans and executes movement, called the motor cortex, fired prior to people’s decision to press a button, suggesting this part of the brain “makes up its mind” before peoples’ conscious decision making kicks in.

To understand more about conscious decision making, Bengson’s team used electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain waves of 19 undergraduates as they looked at a screen and were cued to make a random decision about whether to look right or left.

When people made their decision, a characteristic signal registered that choice as a wave of electrical activity that spread across specific brain regions.

But in a fascinating twist, other electrical activity emanating from the back of the head predicted people’s decisions up to 800 milliseconds before the signature of conscious decision making emerged.

{ Live Science | Continue reading }

related { Searching for the “Free Will” Neuron }

Man sues British Airways over flight he wanted to book to Granada in Spain — but landed in Granada in Caribbean

NY Lawmakers Pass Bill Banning Pet Tattoos, Piercings

New Yorkers are prone to wrinkling, a new study has found. Largely thanks to long, hard commute.

Safest and riskiest areas of New York’s subway system

For the first time scientists have found a direct biological link between stress and inflammation of blood vessels which can lead to heart attacks

Instinct Can Beat Analytical Thinking

Is group brainstorming more effective if you do it standing up?

What is episodic memory good for?

Is finding that ‘new’ invention a massive mental leap from point A to point B, or are there scores of unnoticed intermediate steps in between? Pitt psychology researchers explore how engineers create

Where Do New Ideas Come From?

How often do men really think about sex?

Is It Really True That Watching Porn Will Shrink Your Brain?

The basic unit of neuronal communication and coding is the spike (or action potential), an electrical impulse of about a tenth of a volt that lasts for a bit less than a millisecond. How does the brain speak to itself?

Neuroscience patients who changed how we think about the brain

In a remarkable experiment, a paralyzed woman used her mind to control a robotic arm. If only there were a realistic way to get this technology out of the lab and into real life.

Human Foreskins are Big Business for Cosmetics

A man with almost no hair on his body has grown a full head of it after a novel treatment by doctors at Yale University. The patient has also grown eyebrows and eyelashes, as well as facial, armpit, and other hair, which he lacked at the time he sought help.

Time Travel Simulated by Australian Physicists

One physicist says the speed of light must be slower than Einstein predicted and has developed a theory that explains why 

Big Bang backlash: BICEP2 discovery of gravity waves questioned by cosmologists

Blue Light Exposure before Evening Meal Linked to Increased Hunger

Causes of accidents by soy sauce squeezing residue and fish meal

On How Hygiene and Authenticity Shape Consumer Evaluations of Restaurants [PDF]

All-you-can-eat sushi restaurants should not exist. So why do they?

Why We Enjoy Chili Peppers, S&M, Gruesome Movies, and Other Unpleasant Experiences

Readers come to a page to consume content, not ads — so, does higher engagement with a part of a page actually correlate with higher engagement with the ad that’s in view at that position?

How does a chicken tell time?

Why do your earphones get tangled in your pocket?

In a year with (practically) no water, here’s something that was inevitable: farming without any water at all.

This French tech school has no teachers, no books, no tuition

See how borders change on Google Maps depending on where you view them

Salvador Dali was a reader of Scientific American, and created one of his most iconic pieces based on a Scientific American article on face perception.

The Pearl Diving Mermaids of Japan

black diamond in disneyland

Does temperature affect economic performance? Has temperature always affected social welfare through its impact on physical and cognitive function? While many studies have explored the indirect links between climate and welfare (e.g. agricultural yield, violent conflict, or sea-level rise), few address the possibility of direct impacts operating through human physiology. This paper presents a model of labor supply under thermal stress, building on a longstanding physiological literature linking thermal stress to health and task performance. […]

We find that hotter-than-average years are associated with lower output per capita for already hot countries and higher output per capita for cold countries: approximately 3%-4% in both directions.

{ SSRN | Continue reading }

related { Ambient temperatures can influence the growth or loss of brown fat in people }

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 }