Psychologists investigate why some people see the future as being behind them
Flight diverted after fight over legroom. One passenger was using the Knee Defender, a $21.95 gadget that attaches to a passenger’s tray table and prevents the person in front of them from reclining.
Seattle doctor accused of sexting during surgery
Does Love last? No. Romantic/Passionate love declines after marriage. After two years of marriage, average spouses express affection for each other only half as often as they did when they were newlyweds. Divorces occur more frequently in the fourth year of marriage than at any other time. [Psychology of Romantic Relationships | PDF]
Reading ‘Fifty Shades’ linked to unhealthy behaviors
Fifty-eight adolescent girls and 60 young adult women viewed a Facebook profile with either a sexualized profile photo or a nonsexualized profile photo and then evaluated the profile owner. Results indicated that the sexualized profile owner was considered less physically attractive, less socially attractive, and less competent to complete tasks. [APA/PsycNET]
On Facebook, people frequently express emotions, which are later seen by their friends via Facebook’s “News Feed” product. Because people’s friends frequently produce much more content than one person can view, the News Feed filters posts, stories, and activities undertaken by friends. News Feed is the primary manner by which people see content that friends share. Which content is shown or omitted in the News Feed is determined via a ranking algorithm that Facebook continually develops and tests in the interest of showing viewers the content they will find most relevant and engaging. One such test is reported in this study: A test of whether posts with emotional content are more engaging. […] For people who had positive content reduced in their News Feed, a larger percentage of words in people’s status updates were negative and a smaller percentage were positive. When negativity was reduced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results suggest that the emotions expressed by friends, via online social networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our knowledge, the first experimental evidence for massive-scale emotional contagion via social networks, and providing support for previously contested claims that emotions spread via contagion through a network. [PNAS]
Husband takes his wife to court over honeymoon photos she posted on Facebook
Women were more threatened than men when imagining another person complimenting their partner’s physical appearance. [PDF]
Couple walled in by angry neighbours
Douglas also admitted to having sex with bodies being stored while awaiting autopsies.
Does Seeing the Doctor More Often Keep You Out of the Hospital? [PDF]
On average, people’s memories stretch no farther than age three and a half. Everything before then is a dark abyss. Psychologists have named this dramatic forgetting “childhood amnesia.”
Neuroscientists watch imagination happening in the brain
The use of hallucinogens in research and therapy
The more strongly people believed in free will, the more they liked making choices
Panic disorder and epilepsy were associated with low belief in free will.
Here, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty [PDF]
Music helps you focus on your own thoughts, but only if you like it
Home is where the microbes are
A whole functional organ has been grown from scratch inside an animal for the first time
Results show that carrying a backpack in an asymmetrical manner negatively affects spine, even if the backpack weight constitutes 10% of the child’s weight. [SAGE]
Hangover Cure Finally Comes to the U.S.
Drinking small amounts of alcohol boosts people’s sense of smell
Effect of maternal coffee, smoking and drinking behavior on adult son’s semen quality
Quantification of Pizza Baking Properties of Different Cheeses, and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality [study abstract]
Vending machine dispenses food for stray dogs when people insert recyclable bottles and cans
Schrödinger’s cat caught on quantum film
The smell of rain: what is petrichor?
[T]he Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work. […] [T]he Office cannot register a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings. […] A musical work created solely by an animal would not be registrable, such as a bird song or whale song. Likewise, music generated entirely by a mechanical or an automated process is not copyrightable. […] To qualify as a work of authorship a choreographic work must be created by a human being and it must be intended for execution by humans. Dances performed or intended to be performed by animals, machines, or other animate or inanimate objects are not copyrightable and cannot be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. [U.S. Copyright Office /Popular Science]
States with faster Internet speeds have smarter people
An ad-free internet would cost each user at least £140 a year ($230)
Ever since the first hack of a commercial quantum cryptography device, security specialists have been fighting back. Here’s an update on the battle.
Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
Researchers find it’s terrifyingly easy to hack traffic lights
Inside Google’s Secret Drone-Delivery Program
This Is Uber’s Playbook for Sabotaging Lyft
Does terrorism help perpetrators to achieve their demands?
The Role of Artists in Ship Camouflage During World War I
How Temperatures In Manhattan Differ From Block To Block
Around 75% of all IKEA’s product images are CG
The ‘chairless chair’ that lets you relax anywhere
Egypt feminist defecates on IS flag in the nude
Celebs before their signature Hollywood smiles
London restaurant creates champagne glass modelled on Kate Moss’ left breast
Images from opening scenes of adult movies
Crying Infant Assuager (new patent)