This study investigated whether swearing affects cold-pressor pain tolerance (the ability to withstand immersing the hand in icy water), pain perception and heart rate. […] Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing.

{ Neuroreport | Continue reading }

Previously we showed that swearing produces a pain lessening (hypoalgesic) effect for many people. This paper assesses whether habituation to swearing occurs such that people who swear more frequently in daily life show a lesser pain tolerance effect of swearing, compared with people who swear less frequently.[…] The higher the daily swearing frequency, the less was the benefit for pain tolerance when swearing, compared with when not swearing. This paper shows apparent habituation related to daily swearing frequency, consistent with our theory that the underlying mechanism by which swearing increases pain tolerance is the provocation of an emotional response.

{ American Pain Society | Continue reading }

related { Sense of ownership is necessary to anticipate pain }

photo { Steven Brahms }

As many theorists have noted, consciousness, while both familiar and intimate, remains deeply mysterious. The problem of explaining consciousness persists despite all attempts from the pre-Socratic Greeks to modern day philosophers at illuminating this perplexing subject. Throughout history many great thinkers supported the notion that consciousness or some sort of spiritual reality is distinct from matter, and indeed might be the fundamental source of all reality. However, the dominant view in the twentieth century settled on a more materialistic argument: consciousness most likely emerges from complex biological processes, which in turn are based ultimately on complex interactions between subatomic particles.

This view remains unsatisfactory for some philosophers of mind. While advances in neuroscience have led to improvements in our understanding of how processes within the brain work, we still are no closer to understanding experience at the most basic level. This is what Chalmers (1995) has termed the “hard problem” of consciousness. According to Chalmers, materialistic explanations of consciousness would be consistent with a world populated by zombies acting like people in the world, yet devoid of interior experience. Tackling the hard problem of conscious- ness, Chalmers argues, likely requires abandoning a purely materialistic view of consciousness.

The various theories of consciousness can arguably be grouped into five categories: materialism, dualism, panpsychism, neutral monism, and idealism. As noted above, the current mainstream view looks for materialistic explanations. This typically takes the form of arguing that consciousness must be a higher level activity that has emerged from lower level processes, such as complex biological processes. […]

Material dualism holds that matter and consciousness are two substances that differ fundamentally in a number of ways.1 This and other differences lead to the perhaps unsolvable problem of how such fundamentally different substances can interact. Historically, support for dualism fits well with such religious notions as the soul or supernatural agency. Dualism has attracted fewer adherents, however, as philosophy gravitated toward more naturalistic explanations. […]

Two closely related alternatives are panpsychism and neutral monism. Panpsychism holds that matter and mind are joined as one. The usual view of panpsychism holds that all matter, even electrons, has some aspect of mind, albeit at a rudi- mentary level. While panpsychism has relatively few adherents today, this class of explanations has had a long history in philosophy, being a close relative to animism that was common in early cultures (Skrbina, 2007). Neutral monism holds that matter and consciousness are aspects of some more neutral and fundamental reality. […]

One last alternative is idealism, which holds that the physical universe is composed of mind. […]

After a brief survey of the evidence, I conclude that the best explanation would probably be neutral monism. I then explore a framework for neutral monism, using well-known features of quantum mechanics, to develop a ground or bridge between consciousness and matter.

{ The Journal of Mind and Behavior | PDF }

art { Ellsworth Kelly, Black Forms, 1955 }

Possible Food Poisoning Sickens 100 at Food Safety Summit

The male Y chromosome seems to hold genetic keys that stave off cancer and add years to a man’s life, according to new research.

Stanford study finds walking improves creativity

Using A Foreign Language Changes Moral Decisions

Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. [Thanks Tim]

Scientists may have solved one of history’s biggest biomedical mysteries—why the deadly 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, which killed perhaps 50 million people worldwide, largely targeted healthy young adults.

The Mathematical Con of Hedge Funds and Financial Advisers

Corporate cash holdings are at the lowest level in 15 years

Vox has a piece claiming that there’s a ‘much better way’ to board planes. Are the airlines just stupid?

What you actually get when the package is labelled “Organic”

Why Is There No Pill For ‘Asian Glow’? Plus, why Esquire’s consequence-free drinking method sounds like total bunk.

10 of the weirdest birth control methods from throughout time. [via gettingsome]

Lab-Grown Organs: Yes. Lab-Grown Meat: No.

Flexible battery, no lithium required

How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors

Man With Genius Strategy Poses As Cupcake On Tinder And It Actually Worked [Thanks Tim]

A cardboard cutout of Paris Hilton has a painkilling effect on mice

Why Cats Paint

Imagining watching a video of oneself driving a car, playing basketball, or speaking to a friend is an experience as the self-as-actor. […]

Another way of accessing motivation is by asking people questions about their lives. Open-ended verbal responses (e.g., narratives or implicit measures) require the respondent to produce ideas, recall details, reflect upon the significance of concrete events, imagine a future, and narrate a coherent story. In effect, prompts to narrate ask respondents, “What is it like to be you?” Imagining actually driving a car, playing basketball, or speaking to a friend is an experience as the self-as-agent (McAdams, 2013). Asking people to tell about their lives also recruits the self-as-agent. […]

Taken together, this leads to the prediction that frames the current research: Inventory ratings, which recruit the self-as-actor, will yield moral impressions, whereas narrated descriptions, which recruit the self-as-agent, will yield the impression of selfishness.

{ JPSP via Overcoming Bias | Continue reading }

Can you ever be reasonably sure that something is random, in the same sense you can be reasonably sure something is not random (for example, because it consists of endless nines)? Even if a sequence looked random, how could you ever rule out the possibility that it had a hidden deterministic pattern? And what exactly do we mean by “random,” anyway?

These questions might sound metaphysical, but we don’t need to look far to find real-world consequences. In computer security, it’s crucial that the keys used for encryption be generated randomly—or at least, randomly enough that a potential eavesdropper can’t guess them. Day-to-day fluctuations in the stock market might look random—but to whatever extent they can be predicted, the practical implications are obvious. Casinos, lotteries, auditors, and polling firms all get challenged about whether their allegedly random choices are really random, and all might want ways to reassure skeptics that they are.

Then there’s quantum mechanics, which famously has declared for a century that “God plays dice,” that there’s irreducible randomness even in the behavior of subatomic particles.

{ American Scientist | Continue reading }

image { Matt Waples }

We tend to characterize art as “self-expression,” but that’s really more a description of bad art. The immature artist, as Eliot wrote, is constantly giving in to the urge to vent what’s inside, whereas the good artist seeks to escape that urge. […]

Social media turns us all into bad poets.

{ Rough Type | Continue reading | Thanks Rob }

{ Scientific Illustrations | more }

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

{ 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 }

Vancouver has banned doorknobs in all new buildings.

Kidnapped boy sings gospel song until his abductor releases him

Some 437,000 people murdered worldwide in 2012

Why Did Russia Give Away Crimea Sixty Years Ago?

Study: People pay more attention to the upper half of field of vision

Why do We Make Gestures (Even when No One Can See Them)?

Men who started smoking before age 11 had fatter sons

Can casual marijuana use damage the brains of young adults? A new study says yes—but its participants suggest otherwise.

The cognitive cost or benefit of booze depends on your genes, suggests a new study which uses a unique longitudinal data set.

The lunar phases influence all sorts of creatures from cheetahs to eagle owls. Does the moon tug on human behaviour too?

Mathematicians Devise The World’s Most Unusual Typefaces Based On Problems of Computational Geometry

Algorithm Distinguishes Memes from Ordinary Information

If the new line of research is correct, then the story of time’s arrow begins with the quantum mechanical idea that, deep down, nature is inherently uncertain.

New first-class seating units can cost more than half a million dollars each.

What it takes to make a convincing, fake mermaid [Thanks Tim]

Writing philosophy

What it Takes to Cook Some of Literature’s Most Famous Meals

a 3-D Printer for Hyper-Complicated Candy

Warhol works recovered from old Amiga disks [more, thanks Daniel]

Black Cat Auditions in Hollywood (1961)

On the evil of incomplete coitus

Missing boy existed only on Facebook

Norway’s adult literacy rate is 100% Is Norway paradise for publishers?

New research shows people are thinking about their health early in the week

The more alcoholic drinks customers consumed, the more attractive they thought they were

Uniter of Sperm and Egg Is Found

Scientists discover brain’s anti-distraction system

The researchers were interested in how people jump to conclusions based on limited information. The key part of the experiment was that the participants were fully aware of the setup. [via Mind Hacks]

Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music

Yawning as a brain cooling mechanism

Study suggest that having an increased familial morbid risk for schizophrenia may be the underlying basis for schizophrenia in cannabis users and not cannabis use by itself.

These observations indicate that even causal cannabis use can lead to significant structural changes in key areas of the brain during development, including disruption of how the neurons themselves are organised.

Criminals Using Drones To Find Illegal Cannabis Farms and Steal Crops

Method and apparatus for preserving human and animal remains

Firing a shotgun to calculate the approximate value of π

How the stock market became “rigged”

Dark patterns are deliberate acts of manipulative design whose intent is to push users toward choices that harm their interests.

Google pays Apple $1 billion a year in commissions so that it is the default search engine for iOS devices

Bill Gates vs. Google Glass: Pending patent would thwart video snooping

This isn’t an abnormal use of Google Glass

Bitcoin Creator ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ Unmasked–Again?

He won the IgNobel Award in 2000 for levitating a live frog with magnets—and then [won the Nobel] for isolating graphene 10 years later

Jesus in Interaction: The Sociology of Micro-charisma

The Art of Antarctic Cooking

Looks Like Pharrell Ripped Off Brooklynites’ ‘Girl Walk All Day’ Video

Just the thing for a cosy night in

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 }

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 }

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 }

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 }

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 }

Man sues hospital and doctor after they allegedly forgot to remove his appendix during his appendectomy

The Italian Tourist Board spends 98 percent of its budget on salaries, with basically nothing left for its actual job of tourism promotion. [NY Times]

A British ice cream maker has created a flavor that includes 25 mg of Viagra per scoop. The flavor, titled “The Arousal,” also includes champagne as a key ingredient.

Physicists have confirmed the existence of an exotic particle that cannot be explained by current theories.

How CERN’s discovery of exotic particles may affect astrophysics

Bioengineers created nanoscale robots from DNA strands, injected them into live cockroaches and watched as the bots got to work.

How Neuroscientists in the 1800s Studied Blood Flow in the Brain

Humans can learn new information during sleep (associations between tones and odors)

How to Detect Criminal Gangs Using Mobile Phone Data

How Social Media Users Avoid Getting Turned Into Big Data

Blogger Pulls Off $30,000 Sting to Get Her Stolen Site Back

Writing revealing stories based on unreliable sources

Cindy Sherman on James Franco’s New Show: ‘I Don’t Know That I Can Say It’s Art’

The first emoticon may have appeared in 1648

The Insider Vocabulary of the Art World

Suicides & churches in Seattle, 1928

New visual illusion

Missing flight MH370: Robotic submarine to begin search

Safely Immobilize Children

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]

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 }

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 }