The Male Idiotic Theory (MIT) stipulates that the reason men are more prone to injury and death is simply because they “are idiots and idiots do stupid things“. Despite tons of anecdotal evidence confirming MIT, there’s never been a systematic analysis on sex differences in idiotic risk taking behaviour. Until now. In a new study published in BMJ, researchers obtained 20 years worth of data from the Darwin Awards to tally up the sex of each year’s winner. For those not in the know, the Darwin Awards are given to people who die in such astonishingly stupid ways that “their action ensures the long-term survival of the species, by selectively allowing one less idiot to survive”. […] Men made up a staggering 88.7 % of Darwin Award winners in 318 examined cases. [Neurorexia]
Males are more likely to die than females while in the womb
Several weeks ago, Vidra communicated the new vision to the staff in what I am told was an uncomfortable stream of business clichés ungrounded in any apparent strategy other than saying things like “let’s break shit” and “we’re a tech company now.” [NY mag | Continue reading | Daily Beast]
Women outperform men in some financial negotiations
Most American presidents destined to fade from nation's memory, study suggests [more]
The door-in-the-face (DITF) influence strategy has been studied for over 20 years. […] Before making a request of a person, an initial larger request is made, which the person declines. […] Declining the first request makes persons more likely to accept the second (target) request. [Guilt and expected guilt in the door-in-the-face technique | PDF | via Improbable]
10 of The Most Counter-intuitive Psychology Findings Ever Published 1. Self-help Mantras Can Do More Harm Than Good […] 3. Criminals Show Cooperation and Prosocial Behaviour in Economic Games […] 5. We Make Many Decisions Mindlessly […] 6. Opposites Don't Attract […] 10. Sometimes a Pregnant Woman's Depression is Advantageous For Her Baby [BPS]
This research proposes that because rounded numbers are more fluently processed, rounded prices (e.g., $200.00) encourage reliance on feelings. In contrast, because nonrounded numbers are disfluently processed, nonrounded prices (e.g., $198.76) encourage reliance on cognition. Thus, rounded (nonrounded) prices lead to a subjective experience of “feeling right” when the purchase decision is driven by feelings (cognition). Further, this sense of feeling right resulting from the fit between the roundedness of the price number and the nature of decision context can make positive reactions toward the target product more positive and negative reactions more negative, a phenomenon referred to as the rounded price effect in the current research. Results from five studies provide converging evidence for the rounded price effect. Findings from the current research further show that merely priming participants with rounded (nonrounded) numbers in an unrelated context could also lead to the rounded price effect. [Journal of Consumer Research]
Frostbite is the freezing of parts of the body. Your cells are mostly water; when water freezes it forms crystals. The crystals are sharp and are larger than the same amount of water (ie. water expands when it freezes). This leads to punctures in the cell membranes; the affected parts of the body sort of digest themselves due to the release of enzymes from the broken cells. Frostbite usually affects the extremities - toes, fingers, nose, ear lobes, private parts for men - because they have less blood flow and are harder to keep warm. Your body also sacrifices these body parts in an effort to keep warm by constricting blood vessels to keep the majority of blood from cooling and carrying the cold back to the center of the body. […] Hypothermia is the bone-chilling cold you feel when your entire body’s temperature is dropping. Your normal body temperature is 98.6 ?F (37 ?C) or thereabouts. At 95 ?F (35 ?C) hypothermia begins. At 91 ?F (32.7 ?C) you get amnesia, and below 85 ?F (29.5 ?C) you lose consciousness. […] Hypothermia can kill you in several ways, two of which have to do with electricity. Your heart beats because it supplies itself with a chemico-electrical jolt every second or so. This is what occurs in the sinus and AV nodes of the heart and is based on an electrical charge difference across the cells' membranes in the node. Low body temperature messes with the membrane potential, so the heartbeat is slow and erratic. Too slow (bradycardia) or too erratic (arrhythmia) leads to a heartbeat so dysfunctional that it won’t push the blood through your body and you die from cardiac failure. [The ‘Scope]
The Sex Lives of Sex Researchers
How addicts gained the power to reverse overdoses
When a man was fitted with a new heart, his mind changed in unusual ways. Why?
[D]etoxing – the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go – is a scam. It’s a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things. “Let’s be clear,” says Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, “there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn’t.” The respectable one, he says, is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening drug addictions. “The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you’re supposed to have accumulated.” […] In 2009, a network of scientists assembled by the UK charity Sense about Science contacted the manufacturers of 15 products sold in pharmacies and supermarkets that claimed to detoxify. The products ranged from dietary supplements to smoothies and shampoos. When the scientists asked for evidence behind the claims, not one of the manufacturers could define what they meant by detoxification, let alone name the toxins. [...] Then there's colonic irrigation. Its proponents will tell you that mischievous plaques of impacted poo can lurk in your colon for months or years and pump disease-causing toxins back into your system. Pay them a small fee, though, and they’ll insert a hose up your bottom and wash them all away.[…] No doctor has ever seen one of these mythical plaques, and many warn against having the procedure done, saying that it can perforate your bowel. [The Guardian]
Scientists have created a chemical that can be added to food to make people feel full.
Effect of Vaginal Electrical Stimulation
'Off switch' for pain discovered
Forty percent of trials reported significantly greater long-term weight loss with diet compared with aerobic exercise. Diet+aerobic exercise resulted in significantly greater weight loss than diet alone in 50% of trials.
things you (probably) didn't know about the Middle Ages
Many theories have hypothesized that Protestantism should have favored economic development. Using population figures of 272 cities in the years 1300-1900, I find no effects of Protestantism on economic growth.
Does Religious Beliefs Affect Economic Growth? Evidence from Provincial-level Panel Data in China
The balcony scene in "Romeo and Juliet" is not actually in Shakespeare's play.
Wittgenstein and Hitler Attended the Same School in Austria, at the Same Time (1904-1905)
Evidence for 'bilingual advantage' may be less conclusive than previously thought
It’s called “beauty work.” It’s a digital procedure of sorts, in which a handful of skilled artists use highly specialized software in the final stages of post-production to slim, de-age and enhance actors’ faces and bodies. […] Under strict non-disclosure agreements, Hollywood A-listers have been quietly slipping in and out of a few bland office buildings around town, many to sit in on days-long retouching sessions, directing the artists to make every frame suitable. […] Hips are narrowed, calves slimmed, turkey-necks tucked. Pores are tightened. Eye-bags reduced (often, entire hangovers are erased). Hair is thickened, teeth whitened. Underarm-skin is de-jiggled. Belly fat obliterated, abs raised. [ Mashable]
According to a study released this week by Brown University's Department of Modern Culture and Media, it now takes only four minutes for a new cultural touchstone to transform from an amusing novelty into an intensely annoying thing people never want to see or hear again. […] "We project that by 2018, the gap between liking something new and wishing yourself dead rather than hearing it again will be down to 60 seconds," Levinson said. "And by 2023, enjoyment and abhorrence will occur simultaneously, the two emotions effectively canceling each other out and leaving one feeling nothing whatsoever." [The Onion | via Nathan Jurgenson]
Alfredo Martinez strapped his little brother to a rocket engine at the age of 12, was shot in the leg in Guatemala by a death squad in the 1980’s, and he himself shot his dealer at an art fair in New York City with a self-made gun.
Much Contemporary Art is a Sham Says Famous British Critic
Even Steve Martin Got Sold an $850,000 Forgery
Museums are mining increasingly detailed layers of information about their guests, employing some of the same strategies that companies like Macy’s, Netflix and Wal-Mart have used in recent years to boost sales by tracking customer behavior
Startup wants to build you a personal website that’s automatically updated with your own data
The tattoos are worn exactly as a regular temporary tattoo would be worn. The sensors simply sit atop the skin without penetrating it and interact with Bluetooth or other wireless devices with a signal in order to send the data.
WhatsApp is cited in nearly half of all Italian divorce proceedings
People trust NSA more than Google, survey says
The Cost of the “S” in HTTPS [PDF]
BitTorrent launches invite-only torrent-based browser
IsoHunt unofficially resurrects The Pirate Bay
List of search terms blocked in China
The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple
This startup wants to pay you to fly with strangers’ stuff in your luggage
Big Bang, Universe, Sun & Earth, Life begins…
New theories suggest the big bang was not the beginning, and that we may live in the past of a parallel universe. […] Time’s arrow may in a sense move in two directions, although any observer can only see and experience one. [Scientific American]
Amazing unknown transparent vehicle captured over Vienna, Austria - Nov 26, 2014 [Thanks Tim]