Most men who undergo circumcision do not know where their foreskins go after the process.
Couples need just 1 conversation to decide not to have children
A cardboard cutout of Paris Hilton has a painkilling effect on mice
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? [American Scientist]
Why do we make gestures (even when no one can see them)?
Using A Foreign Language Changes Moral Decisions
Stanford study finds walking improves creativity
Study: People pay more attention to the upper half of field of vision
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. [Overcoming Bias/JPSP ]
The age at which you reach reach cognitive performance: 24
The brain pathway that regulates behaviors 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
10 of the weirdest birth control methods from throughout time. [via gettingsome]
On the evil of incomplete coitus
Could the menstrual cycle have shaped the evolution of music?
Meta-Analysis of Menstrual Cycle Effects on Women’s Mate Preferences
Difference between how men and women choose their partners
People seem to have more heart attacks on Mondays than other days of the week.
Some 437,000 people murdered worldwide in 2012
Why Did Russia Give Away Crimea Sixty Years Ago?
Possible Food Poisoning Sickens 100 at Food Safety Summit
Lab-Grown Organs: Yes. Lab-Grown Meat: No.
What it Takes to Cook Some of Literature's Most Famous Meals
What you actually get when the package is labelled “Organic”
A Water Bottle You Can Actually Eat
A growing number of women are being arrested for driving while drunk since 2003
Why Is There No Pill For 'Asian Glow'? Plus, why Esquire's consequence-free drinking method sounds like total bunk.
Antibiotic Resistance Is Now Rife across the Entire Globe
Immortality through advanced technology and primitive diet
Vox has a piece claiming that there’s a ‘much better way’ to board planes. Are the airlines just stupid? [Related: The fastest ways to board a plane]
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 via Rob Horning]
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. [Art Net]
Warhol works recovered from old Amiga disks [more, thanks Daniel]
How movies forge great art, legally
Remembering Index Magazine With Peter Halley
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 Mathematical Con of Hedge Funds and Financial Advisers
The decline and fall of trading as a money maker for giant banks
Mathematicians Devise The World’s Most Unusual Typefaces Based On Problems of Computational Geometry
Algorithm Distinguishes Memes from Ordinary Information
How to Win at Rock-Paper-Scissors
One Startup’s Struggle to Survive the Silicon Valley Gold Rush
This 3D printer technology can print a game controller, electronics and all
Man With Genius Strategy Poses As Cupcake On Tinder And It Actually Worked [Thanks Tim]