Thanks to the @FederalReserve arrival, the value of all tweets will collapse by 98% in a few years. [...] The @FederalReserve is concerned about declining characters per tweet - to fix that it will give $1.6 trillion to insolvent US banks. [@ZeroHedge]
This has led researchers to ask the questions: How can we get mobile users to break out of their patterns, visit less frequented areas, and collect the data we need? [ McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science ]
What Privacy Advocates Don't Get About Data Tracking on the Web [The Atlantic]
Here we try to clarify terminology of treatment models based on the pharmacology of treatment agents. This editorial covers all drugs that are used for their pleasurable effects and which therefore can lead to harmful/hazardous use, dependence and addiction. These include nicotine, alcohol and abused prescription drugs such as benzodiazepines, as well as opioids and stimulants. [SAGE]
University of Alberta study explores women's experiences of public change rooms and locker rooms; finds many don't relish the experience of being naked in front of others. [EurekAlert]
In recent years, a small number of researchers have been working to develop the science of post-coitus. [Salon]
Within the hippocampus lies the dentate gyrus, which is where adult neurogenesis takes place — the formation of new neurons throughout adulthood. [Chimeras]
Even after discovering and confirming a new species of plant, which is trying enough itself, botanists have to submit a description in Latin — even if they had never studied the language before — and ensure that said description is published in a journal printed on real paper. That is until New Years Day 2012. [Scientific American]
In June 1979, in a procedure that lasted nearly 10 hours, doctors created a firebreak to contain Vicki’s seizures by slicing through her corpus callosum, the bundle of neuronal fibres connecting the two sides of her brain. This drastic procedure, called a corpus callosotomy, disconnects the two sides of the neocortex, the home of language, conscious thought and movement control. [Nature]
The passage is from Banksy’s 2004 book Cut It Out, and it presents the idea that if advertisers are going to fill your world with ads, you have every right to “take, re-arrange and re-use” those images without permission. The quote has been posted widely on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, which is where I found it. Here’s the interesting part: Most of it is swiped directly from an essay I wrote in 1999. [Reading Frenzy]
Putting Helium in a Dolphin. […] Sixty-two percent of the dishwashers were positive for fungi. […] In Study 1, 55 young women responded that they preferred men with hairy chests and circumcised penises. [Annals of Improbable Research]
Is it important to society that the public believes in free will even if learned scientists and philosophers do not? [Janet Kwasniak]
Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it. [The Atlantic]
By 2020, carbon emissions since the start of the 21st century will have surpassed those of the entire 20th. There is a real risk that emissions on such a scale will bring disaster to humans, or to the natural world, or both. Nuclear power, which produces no direct carbon-dioxide emissions, should be able to make things better. [The Economist]
The memory for odors has been studied mostly from the point of view of odor recognition. In the present work, the memory for odors is studied not from the point of view of recognition but from the hedonic dimension of the sensation aroused by the stimulus. [International Journal of Psychological Studies]
Sushi, of course, is the ultimate in simple food: mostly just rice and a piece of raw fish, it would seem that anyone with a knife and one functioning hand can make it. But take an impossible eye for detail and apply it to fish—Where did it come from? How long should you age it before serving for best flavor? How long should you massage it to make it tender, but still have texture? Where should you cut a piece from, and at what angle, to highlight the flavors of different parts of the muscle? Since temperature affects aroma, how warm should you let the fish get in your hand before serving it? How hard do you press the fish into the rice to form a bite that has integrity, but is not dense?—and you begin to see where a simple food is not so simple. [Gilt Taste]
Eating people is wrong. But why? [LA Review of Books]
In one experiment, just telling a man he would be observed by a female was enough to hurt his psychological performance. [Scientific American]
If you’re looking to enhance your experience of abstract art, you may want to consider spending some pre-gallery time watching a horror film. [BPS]
The discovery of an ultimate speed limit for birds flying through forest clutter could help shape the design of future autonomous aerial vehicles. [ The Physics arXiv Blog]
Why do birds sing in the morning? [Safari Ecology]
In their 2006 research they compared 40 exotic dancers with a similar number of young adult females who didn’t strip for a living. Using validated surveys, and interviewing both groups, they made some significant findings. [Dr Stu's Blog]
I am so booking the Hilton for next year like, today. [Overheard at SXSW]
Angelina Jolie to sack stylist over Oscar dress humiliation.
Chicago Billboard Provides Helpful Reminder That Hot Dogs Cause Butt Cancer.
Most unpaid internships are illegal.
Words spelled with more letters on the right of the keyboard are associated with more positive emotions than words spelled with more letters on the left, according to new research by cognitive scientists.
A new study shows that bringing somebody back to your freezing apartment may increase their loneliness and send them in search of the “social warmth” a companion can provide.
When men get stressed, their bodies get more revved up than women's. Now, two Australian researchers have a theory as to why — and it all boils down to a single gene.
How repeated stress impairs memory.
Old memories interfere with remembering new ones. Scans in healthy people reveal how the brain juggles outdated versus fresh information.
Getting older makes us happier, because we give up on our dreams.
Ketamine - Magic Antidepressant, or Expensive Illusion?
Why a classic psychology experiment isn’t what it seemed. More: Unbeknownst to them, walking the hall was the real experiment.
Will we ever restore sight to the blind?
Can The Human Brain See Quantum Images?
How Three Germans Are Cloning the Web.
An Autoethnographic Account of a Tattooed Female and (Re)appropriation of the Tourist Gaze.
Listen to the music from Bret Easton Ellis’ entire oeuvre.
Dear Mr. Orwell, […] Yours sincerely, Aldous Huxley.
The novel has been described with the term "Mommy porn," a distressing new addition to the lexicon.
How Do You Cite a Tweet in an Academic Paper?
'I wanted to slit my fucking wrists. Look at this world, it’s all so shallow. You want me to pay eighty bucks to listen to you bitch about your mother for two hours? I don’t think so.' --J.T. Rogers, on the state of contemporary American theater. [Boston to Brooklyn]