Most people do not seem to perceive microexpressions in themselves or others. In the Wizards Project, previously called the “Diogenes Project,” Drs. Paul Ekman and Maureen O’Sullivan studied the ability of people to detect deception. Of the thousands of people tested, only a select few were able to accurately detect when someone was lying. The Wizards Project researchers named these people “Truth Wizards.” To date, the Wizards Project has identified just over 50 people with this ability after testing nearly 20,000 people. Truth Wizards use microexpressions, among many other cues, to determine if someone is being truthful. Scientists hope by studying wizards that they can further advance the techniques used to identify deception.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

art { Eli Craven }

Wife accidentally shot in mouth with harpoon, survives.

3D-Printed Gun’s Blueprints Downloaded 100,000 Times In Two Days (With Some Help From Kim Dotcom).

I don’t believe that the NSA could save every domestic phone call, not at this time. Possibly after the Utah data center is finished, but not now.

Women are more attracted to guitarists than sporty guys.

Physical, Behavioral, and Psychological Traits of Gay Men Identifying as Bears.

A biopharmaceutical company will know this year whether an antibody produced using a unique technique can prevent chronic migraines.

Cone receptors in the human eye lose their color sensitivity with age, but our subjective experience of color remains largely unchanged over the years. “This suggests that the visual brain re-calibrates itself as we get older.”

The future of a home computer controlled by your eyes may be far closer than you think.

Why do cardio exercise when you could just do cocaine?

Ultraconserved words? Really??

Voina (or “War” to give them their English name) are a radical art group concerned with challenging the Russian establishment. [Thanks Yvonne]

A blog about trying to find affordable housing in New York City. [Thanks Stella]

Fartscroll. Everyone farts. And now your web pages can too.

Shamed by you english?

A new antibiotic-resistant form of gonorrhoea could be ‘worse than Aids’, according to some US doctors.

Are Those North Korean Long-Range Missiles For Real?

People Feel Less Busy Spending Time on Others.

Fleeing Facebook: Study examines why people quit — and come back — to the ‘global aquarium.’

Doubling the efficiency of solar devices would completely change the economics of renewable energy. Here is a design that just might make it possible.

Capital punishment in China: A populist instrument of social governance.

The traditional view is that words can’t survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years. Linguists identify 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words.’

Radiocarbon dating puts the age of the body between A.D. 1200 and A.D.1280, an era once considered part of Europe’s anti-scientific “Dark Ages.” In fact, said study researcher Philippe Charlier, a physician and forensic scientist, the new specimen suggests surprising anatomical expertise during this time period.

Imagine you’ve been taken, somehow, and dropped into a big city in another place, with comparable technological and economic development, somewhere you don’t speak the language. Here’s the twist: it’s also time travel. How long would it take you to notice that you’ve been shifted in time as well as space?

A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest has evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions.

Now you can enlarge and denoise your photos, all thanks to basic research.

What would happen if a large chunk (1/8th) of our Earth was suddenly removed?

Child Abuse Billboard Contains ‘Secret Message’ Not Visible to Adults.

Who Me smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer. [Thanks Tim]

Last night, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosted the 2013 Met Gala. This year’s theme was “Punk: From Chaos To Couture.” For many celebrities, this was the first time they had used the word “punk” in a sentence that wasn’t “Have my assistant get me Daft Punk tickets.”

[…]

“I skipped punk and went straight to couture. I never did punk.”
 —Andre Leon Talley, editor at large of Vogue/total fucking clown


“I did not [have a punk phase]. That’s why I think my version of punk for me is not probably the mohawk, typical punk that you’d sort of envision. A little bit more like ‘romantic punk.” 
—Kim Kardashian, notable reality TV shithead


“I don’t think I fully understood the theme.”
 —Kate Upton, human Viagra for Terry Richardson

{ Jaded Punk | Continue reading }

A person named “John Titor” started posting on the Internet one day, claiming to be from the future and predicting the end of the world. Then he suddenly disappeared, never to be heard from again. […]

He claimed he was a soldier sent from 2036, the year the computer virus wiped the world. […]

Titor responded to every question other posters had, describing future events in poetically-phrased ways, always submitted with a general disclaimer that alternate realities do exist, so his reality may not be our own.

{ Pacific Standard | Continue reading | johntitor.com }

Skipping meals can sabotage your shopping – and your diet, according to a new Cornell study. Even short term food deprivation not only increases overall grocery shopping, but leads shoppers to buy 31% more high calorie foods.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

After checking your bank account, remember to log out, close your web browser, and throw your computer into the ocean.

[…]

For those of you using a smartphone or tablet, the process for securely closing your banking session is very similar, except that you should find the nearest canyon and throw your device into that canyon. We then recommend simply scaling down the cliff face, locating the shattered remnants of your device, and spending the next few weeks traversing the country burying each individual piece in separate holes of varying depths several hundred miles apart.

{ The Onion | Continue reading | Thanks Tim }

related { As digital data expands, anonymity may become a mathematical impossibility. }

We live in an age of unusually rapid fundamental discovery. This age cannot last long; it must soon slow down as we run out of basic things to discover. We may never run out of small things to discover, but there can be only so many big things.

Such discovery brings status. Many are proud to live in the schools, disciplines, cities, or nations from which discovery is seen to originate. We are also proud to live in this age of discovery. […]

This ability to unite via our discoveries is a scarce resource that we now greedily consume, at the cost of future generations to whom they will no longer be available. Some of these discoveries will give practical help, and aid our ability to grow our economy, and thereby help future generations. […] But many other sorts of discoveries are pretty unlikely to give practical help. […]

This all suggests that we consider delaying some sorts of discovery. The best candidates are those that produce great pride, are pretty unlikely to lead to any practical help, and for which the costs of discovery seem to be falling. The best candidate to satisfy these criteria is, as far as I can tell, cosmology.

While once upon a time advances in cosmology aided advances in basic physics, which lead to practical help, over time such connections have gotten much weaker.

{ OvercomingBias | Continue reading }

{ Bulletproof Whiteboards And The Marketing Of School Safety }

The four are members of a new idol group, Machikado Keiki Japan, and stocks play an important part in their performances.

“We base our costumes on the price of the Nikkei average of the day. For example, when the index falls below 10,000 points, we go on stage with really long skirts,” Mori explained.

The higher stocks rise, the shorter their dresses get. With the Nikkei index ending above 13,000, the four went without skirts altogether on the day of their interview with The Japan Times, instead wearing only lacy shorts.

{ Japan Times | Continue reading }

“What people do in cities—create wealth, or murder each other—shows a relationship to the size of the city, one that isn’t tied just to one era or nation,” says Lobo. The relationship is captured by an equation in which a given parameter—employment, say—varies exponentially with population. In some cases, the exponent is 1, meaning whatever is being measured increases linearly, at the same rate as population. Household water or electrical use, for example, shows this pattern; as a city grows bigger its residents don’t use their appliances more. […]

If the population of a city doubles over time, or comparing one big city with two cities each half the size, gross domestic product more than doubles. Each individual becomes, on average, 15 percent more productive. Bettencourt describes the effect as “slightly magical,” although he and his colleagues are beginning to understand the synergies that make it possible. Physical proximity promotes collaboration and innovation, which is one reason the new CEO of Yahoo recently reversed the company’s policy of letting almost anyone work from home. […]

Remarkably, this phenomenon applies to cities all over the world, of different sizes, regardless of their particular history, culture or geography. Mumbai is different from Shanghai is different from Houston, obviously, but in relation to their own pasts, and to other cities in India, China or the U.S., they follow these laws.

{ Smithsonian | Continue reading }

art { Alex Roulette }

A new molecule has been created by researchers in Chile that could make teeth ‘cavity proof’, killing the bacteria known to cause caries in less than 60 seconds.

Named ‘Keep 32′ after the number of teeth in the mouth, researchers Jose Cordova and Erich Astudillo hope the product could be used in toothpastes, mouthwashes, floss and even food. Chemical trials have shown that the cavity-causing bacteria Streptococcus mutans can be eliminated for hours with the molecule. […]

Procter & Gamble and five other chemical giants are fighting for the patent.

{ British Dental Journal | Continue reading }

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government? A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims that this is the case.

{ Guardian | Continue reading }

images { 1. Dave Willardson, Rolling Stone, 1976) | 2. Bug, 1975 }

The microbiome — the kilogram of microbes that each of us carries around — has been shown to be involved in everything from obesity and type 2 diabetes to behaviour and sexual preferences. The composition and effects of the microbiome are very active areas of research, producing results which have challenged the way we think about the evolution and interactions of organisms, including ourselves. In a paper recently published in the journal Science, researchers showed for the first time that the make up of the microbiome differs between the sexes, linking these differences to changes in hormone levels and disease resistance. […]

When female mice were given a testosterone inhibitor along with the bacteria from male mice, the rate of diabetes returned to normal.

“It was completely unexpected to find that the sex of an animal determines aspects of their gut microbe composition, that these microbes affect sex hormone levels, and that the hormones in turn regulate an immune-mediated disease,” said Dr. Danska.

{ Inspiring Science | Continue reading }

photo { Jackie Hardt }

The hipster haunts every city street and university town. Manifesting a nostalgia for times he never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone). He harvests awkwardness and self-consciousness. Before he makes any choice, he has proceeded through several stages of self-scrutiny.

{ Christy Wampole/NY Times via | Gothamist | Continue reading }

A new report shows that, despite the rapid spread of renewable technologies, the energy produced today is just as “dirty” as it was 20 years ago.

Pennsylvania judge sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling teens to private prisons.

Companies will soon require that workers use their own smartphone on the job. 38% expect to stop providing devices to workers by 2016.

Greater use of “I” and “me” as a mark of interpersonal distress.

We decided on a seven-day fast. The plan was to go a full week without eating or drinking anything except water.

Last summer, in the dead of night, three peace activists penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States. A drifter, an 82-year-old nun and a house painter. They face trial next week on charges that fall under the sabotage section of the U.S. criminal code

New Camera Inspired by Insect Eyes.

‪Crash Backwards Compilation‬.

Getting old.

so my parents were gone for 2 days and I switched most of our family photos with pictures of steve buscemi…

Hurricane Sandy was the largest storm to hit the northeast U.S. in recorded history, killing 159, knocking out power to millions, and causing $70 billion in damage in eight states. Sandy also put the vulnerability of critical infrastructure in stark relief by paralyzing subways, trains, road and air traffic, flooding hospitals, crippling electrical substations, and shutting down power and water to tens of millions of people. But one of the larger infrastructure failures is less appreciated: sewage overflow.

Six months after Sandy, data from the eight hardest hit states shows that 11 billion gallons of untreated and partially treated sewage flowed into rivers, bays, canals, and in some cases, city streets, largely as a result of record storm-surge flooding that swamped the region’s major sewage treatment facilities. To put that in perspective, 11 billion gallons is equal to New York’s Central Park stacked 41 feet high with sewage, or more than 50 times the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The vast majority of that sewage flowed into the waters of New York City and northern New Jersey in the days and weeks during and after the storm.

{ Climate Central | PDF }

Frances Kaye, a publicity agent, described a movie party she attended at a Palm Springs resort. A live orchestra entertained a thousand-odd guests while a fountain spouted champagne against the backdrop of a desert sky. As partiers circulated, a doctor made rounds like a waiter, dispensing drugs to guests from a bulging sack. On offer were amphetamines and barbituates, standard Hollywood party fare, but guests wanted Miltown. The little white pills “were passed around like peanuts,” Kaye remembered. What she observed about party pill popping was not unique. “They all used to go for ‘up pills’ or ‘down pills,’” one Hollywood regular noted. “But now it’s the ‘don’t-give-a-darn-pills.’”

{ Andrea Tone/Mindhacks | Continue reading }

{ 1. Awaiting the Ambulance, 1959 | 2. Rimantas Dichavičius }

Normal vision is essentially a spatial sense that often relies upon touch and movement during and after development, there is often a correlation between how an object looks and how it feels.

Moreover, as a child’s senses develop, there is cross-referencing between the various senses. Indeed, where the links between the senses are not made, there may be developmental problems or delays.

This should be taken into consideration when training new users of visual prosthetics, artificial retinas, or bionic eyes, suggest researchers in Australia.

{ EurekAlert | Continue reading }

photo { Elena Amagro }