People's belief in free will is lower when they need to urinate or desire sex
Domestic violence likely more frequent for same-sex couples
The main objective of this study was to describe male and female lumbar spine and hip motion and muscle activation patterns during coitus and compare these motions and muscle activity across five common coital positions. […] A secondary objective was to determine if simulated coitus could be used in place of real coitus for future coitus biomechanics research. [via University of Waterloo | PDF]
Venezuela’s shortage of breast implants
Bra Wearing Not Associated with Breast Cancer Risk
Double mastectomy for breast cancer 'does not boost survival chances'
Town in Brazil made up entirely of women has made an appeal for bachelors
’Family meal' ideal is stressful, impossible for many families
New Toyota minivan equips parents with mic to make it easier to yell at unruly kids in the back
To examine the effects of grunting on velocity and force production during dynamic and static tennis strokes in collegiate tennis players. […] The velocity, force, and peak muscle activity during tennis serves and forehand strokes are significantly enhanced when athletes are allowed to grunt. [Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research | more]
Self-Deceived Individuals Are Better at Deceiving Others
‘Memories’ can be passed down through genetic code from one generation to the next.
A woman has reached the age of 24 without anyone realising she was missing a large part of her brain. […] her entire cerebellum was missing […] The cerebellum – sometimes known as the "little brain" – is located underneath the two hemispheres. It looks different from the rest of the brain because it consists of much smaller and more compact folds of tissue. It represents about 10 per cent of the brain's total volume but contains 50 per cent of its neurons. [NewScientist]
How your brain actually makes decisions while you sleep
When you set sad lyrics against happy music, the music wins
Both men and women find humility attractive
Findings from two experiments suggest that priming the passage of time through the sound of a ticking clock influenced various aspects of women’s (but not men’s) reproductive timing. Moreover, consistent with recent research from the domain of life history theory, those effects depended on women’s childhood socioeconomic status (SES). The subtle sound of a ticking clock led low (but not high) SES women to reduce the age at which they sought to get married and have their first child (Study 1), as well as the priority they placed on the social status and long-term earning potential of potential romantic partners (Study 2). [Human Nature]
Gene-Silencing Drugs Finally Show Promise
Genes may help explain why some people are naturally more interested in music than others
An office enriched with plants makes staff happier and boosts productivity by 15 per cent
The evidence that abstinence from alcohol is a cause of heart disease and early death is irrefutable
First-person account of Cotard’s delusion – the belief that you’re dead
This study examines whether tattoo visibility affects recidivism length of ex-offenders [PDF]
Richard Feynman’s Lectures on Physics
Time Travel Simulation Resolves “Grandfather Paradox”
Grandfather busted for prostituting himself... to young women
Imagine that someone else was controlling your actions. You would still look like you, and sound like you, but you wouldn’t be the one deciding what you did and what you said. Would anyone notice the difference?
Action films most likely to make you fat
Serialized Killers: Prebooting Horror in Bates Motel and Hannibal
New Study Examines Impact of Violent Media on the Brain
Study finds ‘magical contagion’ spreads creator’s essence to artworks, adding value
Only 1.5 percent of looted art is ever recovered. Why don't museums put GPS trackers on everything?
Scientists use E.coli bacteria to create fuel
What body parts are seeing the most striking rise in venture-capital funding? Eyes and ears.
“At some factories, robots are even building other robots, producing about 50 robots per 24-hour shift and operating unsupervised for as long as 30 days at a time.” [via gettingsome]
Hackers Are Homing in on Hospitals
How the FBI took down the online black market and drug bazaar known as the Silk Road
Quick-change materials break the silicon speed limit for computers
Burger King goes “Goth” in Japan
Airlines are creating rush hours and crowds at airports - on purpose
When individual performance was publicly posted in the workplace, employees working in a group performed better than when working alone; however, when individual performance was not posted, employees working in a group performed worse than when working alone. [Management Science]
This paper considers when a firm’s freely chosen name can signal meaningful information about its quality, and examines a setting in which it does. Plumbing firms with names beginning with an “A” or a number receive five times more service complaints, on average. In addition, firms use names beginning with an “A” or a number more often in larger markets, and those that do have higher prices. These results reflect consumers’ search decisions and extend to online position auctions: plumbing firms that advertise on Google receive more complaints, which contradicts prior theoretical predictions but fits the setting considered here. [Ryan C. McDevitt | PDF]
Her job was to taste Hitler’s food to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. [via Natalie Shutler]
Plane crash [Thanks Tim]
Portraits of former Playboy Bunnies
Returning to from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn
The various ways to duck paying the fare on the Paris Subway
Porn for the Blind [thanks GG]
Share selfies with your friends if they’re standing behind you. [Thanks Tim]