A growing number of women are being arrested for driving while drunk since 2003
People seem to have more heart attacks on Mondays than other days of the week.
Computer scientists have developed the first algorithm that recognizes people’s faces better than you do
Could the menstrual cycle have shaped the evolution of music?
Meta-Analysis of Menstrual Cycle Effects on Women’s Mate Preferences
Predictors of Extra-Marital Partnerships among Women Married to Fishermen
Couples need just 1 conversation to decide not to have children
The age at which you reach reach cognitive performance: 24
The brain pathway that regulates behaviours associated with fear has been discovered, and it could help researchers develop better treatments for anxiety, phobias and panic attacks.
Smoking synthetic marijuana leads to self-mutilation requiring bilateral amputations
One Startup’s Struggle to Survive the Silicon Valley Gold Rush
This 3D printer technology can print a game controller, electronics and all
China: Firm 3D prints 10 full-sized houses in a day
The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out an NYC Skyscraper [Thanks Tim]
In NYC, a $185M tunnel that leads nowhere, for now
New York will never stab you in the back. It will, however, stab you multiple times right in your face. [Thanks Tim]
The fastest ways to board a plane are Southwest’s boarding method — where people choose their own seats — or a theoretical boarding method known as the “Steffen method” that’s not currently in use.
Most men who undergo circumcision do not know where their foreskins go after the process.
How the world’s most notorious drug lord was captured
The real reason behind the downfall of the Roman Empire might not have been lead contaminating in the water, which is the most popular theory, but the use of concrete as a building material.
How movies forge great art, legally
Remembering Index Magazine With Peter Halley
The decline and fall of trading as a money maker for giant banks
The scientists say much is still to be learned about sloths - the world’s slowest mammals - as even basic information such as their natural diet and habitat preference remains a mystery.
A Water Bottle You Can Actually Eat
Analogue Website
every day the same again |
April 28th, 2014
{ One man’s nearly three-decade quest to authenticate a potential Mark Rothko painting purchased at auction for $319.50 plus tax has turned up convincing evidence in the work’s favor, but the experts seem unlikely to issue a ruling. Rothko expert David Anfam, who published the artist’s catalogue raisonné in 1998, has been familiar with Himmelfarb’s painting since the late 1980s. The scholar even discovered a black-and-white photograph of the work in the archives held by Rothko’s family, but still declined to include the work in his book. | Artnet | full story }
economics, rothko |
April 25th, 2014
In humans, as in many other animals, the appetite prioritizes protein over carbohydrate or fat. The evolutionary explanation is straightforward: eating too little protein compromises growth, development and reproduction.
Many processed food products are protein-poor but are engineered to taste like protein. Many people therefore eat far too much fat and carbohydrate in their attempt to ingest enough protein. In this way, engineered foods subvert the appetite control systems that should be helping to balance the consumption of macronutrients. The results are striking. In the United States, the typical diet saw a 0.8% decline in protein concentration between 1971 and 2006. During this same period, the consumption of calories from carbohydrates and fats increased by 8%, a trend reflected in the rising prevalence of obesity, but protein intake remained almost unchanged.
{ Nature | Continue reading }
economics, food, drinks, restaurants, health |
April 18th, 2014
What do you want to hear first: Good news or bad news?
Our answer to this question is different depending on whether we’re the one delivering the news or we’re the one receiving the news.
{ Jeremiah Stanghini | Continue reading }
photo { Anna Grzelewska }
photogs, psychology |
April 18th, 2014
The XM-25 denies cover to the enemy in that the operator fires a laser at the target, then selects how close to that impact point he wants the shell to explode. Once he fires the weapon the 25mm shell explodes over or near where the laser was pointed, rendering most forms of cover ineffective.
{ Quora | Continue reading }
guns, technology |
April 18th, 2014
Vein geometry is just as unique as irises and fingerprints. The serpentine network of your vascular system is determined by many factors, including random influences in the womb. The result is a chaotic, singular print. Even twins have different vein structure in their hands. Vein patterns don’t change much as you age, so a scan of your palm can serve as biometric identification for the rest of your life.
{ Quartz | Continue reading }
blood, technology |
April 15th, 2014
The average person misplaces up to nine items a day, and one-third of respondents in a poll said they spend an average of 15 minutes each day searching for items—cellphones, keys and paperwork top the list, according to an online survey of 3,000 people published in 2012 by a British insurance company. […]
In a recent study, researchers in Germany found that the majority of people surveyed about forgetfulness and distraction had a variation in the so-called dopamine D2 receptor gene (DRD2), leading to a higher incidence of forgetfulness. According to the study, 75% of people carry a variation that makes them more prone to forgetfulness.
{ WSJ | Continue reading }
related { Processing new information during sleep compromises memory }
photo { Daniel Bejar, The Visual Topography of a Generation Gap (Brooklyn, NY, #1), 2011 }
genes, memory |
April 15th, 2014
An Italian man was sentenced to 6 months in jail because his girlfriend made too much noise during sex.
A 2008 study found that women showed signs of arousal watching pretty much anything: masturbation, straight sex, girl-on-girl, guy-on-guy, bonobo chimps, everything—except pictures of naked men, which did not float a woman’s boat.
Uncontacted Tribes Die Instantly After We Meet Them
Solar power is already so cheap that it competes with oil, diesel and liquefied natural gas in much of Asia without subsidies.
Between a fifth and a third of the wild-caught seafood imported into the United States is caught or trafficked illegally
Australia rules homeopathic remedies useless for human health
New research reveals that lifespan could be affected by how people deal with stress. People who forgive themselves for mistakes are physically healthier than those who obsess over them.
Magnifying the visual size of one׳s own hand modulates pain anticipation and perception, reducing experienced pain
People That Think Social Media Helps Their Work Are Probably Wrong
Too many ‘friends’, too few likes? Evolutionary Psychology and Facebook Depression and Understanding Factors Influencing Users’ Retweeting Behavior [via Bookforum]
44% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet
Quora raised $80 million so it can avoid monetization forever… or at least the next two years
Of all the words in the English language, which one has the most meanings? Run.
The Remarkable Self-Organization of Ants
Wassily Kandinsky, Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca, 1926
Eli Broad: I Would Not Hire Jeffrey Deitch Again
Robert Mapplethorpe having his nipple pierced
‘I want to prove that you can make art with nothing,” Abramovic explained to BBC
He decided to live inside a bear carcass for thirteen days and thirteen nights.
Lets Get Social 2014 [Thanks Tim]
every day the same again |
April 11th, 2014
Partnerships are situations in which two or more persons join to pursue a common project. Being together increases the chances of success of the project, whether the project aims at raising children, establishing a business or writing a scientific article. Much has been written about the issue of free riding in such situations: one of the partners may rely on the others to do most of the work while keeping on enjoying its benefits. This issue can lead to inefficient situations where both partners contribute very little. A comparatively small part of the academic literature deals with the dissolution of partnerships and why partners decide to stop working together. Both low contribution levels and dissolution indicate failure in a partnership, but the distinction between those two types of failures is important; it is akin to the distinction between a dysfunctional marriage that keeps on going, and a marriage that ends in a divorce.
This paper deals with the inner dynamics of partnerships, in particular with how success and failure determine the probability a common project will break down. […]
Subjects underestimated the pay-off from staying, in large part because they had an exaggerated fear of being left alone in the collaborative project. This led to lower overall welfare when exit was easy.
{ SSRN | Continue reading }
relationships |
April 11th, 2014
Spinoza is quoted approvingly […] to the effect that the free man is the one who thinks about, or fears, death the least. Such fear he considers to be a passive emotion, or affection, which is a bondage to pain, symptomatic of our impotence and servitude. Spinoza writes,
Hope is nothing else but an inconstant pleasure, arising from the image of something future or past, whereof we do not yet know the issue. Fear, on the other hand, is an inconstant pain also arising from the image of something concerning which we are in doubt. If the element of doubt be removed from these emotions, hope becomes Confidence and fear become Despair. In other words, Pleasure or Pain arising from the image of something concerning which we have hoped or feared.
The free man, in this light, is one who has not only cultivated the stronger active emotion of acquiescence to the univocal chorus of necessity, but has also learned to disengage external factors which are coincident with such passive emotions.
{ James Luchte | Continue reading }
spinoza |
April 11th, 2014
Young, sexually mature humans Homo sapiens sapiens of both sexes commonly congregate into particular but arbitrary physical locations and dance. These may be areas of traditional use, such as nightclubs, discotheques or dance-halls or areas that are temporarily commissioned for the same purpose such as at house parties or rock festivals etc.
This type of behaviour is seen in a variety of animals although there are no apparent attempts to monopolize particular areas within these locations as is often seen in species that lek.
The present studies were conducted in order to investigate this phenomenon in a commercial nightclub environment. Data revealed that more than 80% of people entering the nightclub did so without a partner and so were potentially sexually available. There was also an approx. 50% increase in the number of couples leaving the nightclub as compared to those entering it seen on each occasion this was measured, indicating that these congregations are for sexual purposes.
Within the nightclub itself more than 80% of bouts of mixed sex dancing were initiated by a male approaching a female, demonstrating that males are stimulated to approach females rather than vice versa. In consequence, females are placed in competition with each other to attract these approaches.
Various female display tactics were measured and these showed that whilst only 20% of females wore tight fitting clothing that revealed more than 40% of their flesh/50% of their breast area and danced in a sexually suggestive manner, these attracted close to half (49%) of all male approaches seen. These data reveal the effectiveness of clothing and dance displays in attracting male attention and strongly indicate that nightclubs are human display grounds, organised around females competing for the attention of males. Females with the most successful displays gain the advantage of being able to choose from amongst a range of males showing interest in them.
{ Institute of Psychological Sciences | PDF }
photo { Camilla Åkrans }
dance, relationships |
April 9th, 2014
A computer has solved the longstanding Erdős discrepancy problem. Trouble is, we have no idea what it’s talking about — because the solution, which is as long as all of Wikipedia’s pages combined, is far too voluminous for us puny humans to confirm.
A few years ago, the mathematician Steven Strogatz predicted that it wouldn’t be too much longer before computer-assisted solutions to math problems will be beyond human comprehension.
{ io9 | Continue reading }
photo { Taryn Simon }
mathematics, technology |
April 9th, 2014
If you’re like most people, you spend a great deal of your time remembering past events and planning or imagining events that may happen in the future. While these activities have their uses, they also make it terribly hard to keep track of what you have and haven’t actually seen, heard, or done. Distinguishing between memories of real experiences and memories of imagined or dreamt experiences is called reality monitoring and it’s something we do (or struggle to do) all of the time. […]
Perhaps you’ve left the house and headed to work, only to wonder en route if you’d locked the door. Even if you thought you did, it can be hard to tell whether you remember actually doing it or just thinking about doing it. […]
The study’s authors also found greater activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex when they compared reality monitoring for actions participants performed with those they only imagined performing.
{ Garden of the Mind | Continue reading }
memory, neurosciences |
April 8th, 2014
When you really focus your attention on something, you’re said to be “in the present moment.” But a new piece of research suggests that the “present moment” is actually […] a sort of composite—a product mostly of what we’re seeing now, but also influenced by what we’ve been seeing for the previous 15 seconds or so. They call this ephemeral boundary the “continuity field.”
{ Quartz | Continue reading }
photo { Richard Sandler }
eyes, neurosciences |
April 7th, 2014
Nine-month-old boy accused of planning murder
China’s corporate debt has hit record levels
Growing up poor is bad for your DNA
A team of researcher have identified a new way of treating cancer.
While antibiotics have saved countless lives, they’re an assault on our microbiome.
Results suggest that a perceiver can accurately gauge the real intelligence of men, but not women, by viewing their faces in photographs More: Want people to think you’re smarter? Smile more.
Which couples who meet on social networking sites are most likely to marry?
Women do not apply to ‘male-sounding’ job postings
Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. [PDF]
There are clear differences between how our brains respond to genuine and fake laughter
Does the unconscious know when you’re being lied to?
Levels of psychopathic traits among Mafia members who have been convicted of a criminal offense
The Empathetic Capacity of Psychopaths and its Neurological Implications
Selfies Linked to Narcissism, Addiction and Mental Illness, Say Scientists [Thanks Tim]
How does stress affect your public speaking skills?
‘Homo’ is the only primate whose tooth size decreases as its brain size increases
The idea that flies don’t like stripes dates back at least to 1930.
Study shows restaurant reviews written on rainy or snowy days, or very cold or hot days, are more negative than those written on nice days.
You Can Now Search Yelp Using Emojis
The inexplicable prices in hotel minibars around the world
Six humans are in Hawaii, testing the psychological effects of life on another planet.
Could Noah’s Ark Float? In Theory, Yes Previously: The Impossible Voyage of Noah’s Ark
How Many People Does It Take to Colonize Another Star System?
Norwegian Skydiver Almost Gets Hit by Falling Meteor — and Captures it on Film
Hacker holds key to free flights
The “Cuban Twitter” Scam
Researchers have created a wearable device that is as thin as a temporary tattoo and can store and transmit data about a person’s movements, receive diagnostic information and release drugs into skin. [more]
Gawker bans ‘Internet slang’
Why I keep a database of my friends and colleagues and rates their personal, professional, physical and financial attributes.
The Steve Jobs email that outlined Apple’s strategy a year before his death
Is This the Modern Woman’s Perfect Bikini Wax?
New Kurt Cobain death scene photos released by Seattle P.D.
Crap Taxidermy [Thanks Tim]
The Golden Boba
Safely Immobilize Children
every day the same again |
April 6th, 2014
{ Why the Trix Rabbit Looks Down on You | FiveThirtyEight | full story }
marketing, visual design |
April 3rd, 2014
