How children are spoofing Covid-19 tests with soft drinks
20% of Americans believe the conspiracy theory that microchips are inside the COVID-19 vaccines
18% had Hallux valgus (deformed big-toes) caused, very probably, by wearing overly pointy shoes
6-7% of the general population hear voices that don’t exist
Lilliputian hallucinations concern hallucinated human, animal or fantasy entities of minute size. Having been famously described by the French psychiatrist Raoul Leroy in 1909, who wrote from personal experience, to date they are mentioned almost routinely in textbooks of psychiatry, albeit with little in-depth knowledge. I therefore systematically reviewed 145 case reports and case series comprising 226 case descriptions.
Tel Aviv dog owners must now register their dog's DNA with municipality. This will then allow municipal inspectors to collect samples from dog feces left uncollected in the streets, and a fine will be sent by mail to the owner who did not clean up.
Training Ferrets to Recognize Virus Odor in Duck Droppings
Google to Help Insurers Measure Slip-and-Fall Risks in Buildings -- Google is using sensors to listen for mobile phones as part of a partnership to help insurers more accurately measure occupancy of buildings where they are on the hook for accidents and other risks
DNA is everywhere, even in the air. That’s no surprise to anyone who suffers allergies from pollen or cat dander. But two research groups have now independently shown the atmosphere can contain detectable amounts of DNA from many kinds of animals. Sampling air may enable a faster, cheaper way to survey creatures in ecosystems.
Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds
Wildfires in Canada are creating their own weather systems
As climates change, prepare for more mosquitoes in winter
A wet-bulb temperature of 35 °C, or around 95 °F, is pretty much the absolute limit of human tolerance, says Zach Schlader, a physiologist at Indiana University Bloomington. Above that, your body won’t be able to lose heat to the environment efficiently enough to maintain its core temperature. That doesn’t mean the heat will kill you right away, but if you can’t cool down quickly, brain and organ damage will start.
In this article, we argue that humans are biased toward pro-relationship decisions—decisions that favor the initiation, advancement, and maintenance of romantic relationships. We next consider possible theoretical underpinnings—both evolutionary and cultural—that may explain why getting into a relationship is often easier than getting out of one, and why being in a less desirable relationship is often preferred over being in no relationship at all.
Eye Contact Marks The Rise And Fall of Shared Attention in Conversation
Recent literature suggests the existence of a G-spot but specifies that, since it is not a spot, neither anatomically nor functionally, it cannot be called G, nor spot, anymore. It is indeed a functional, dynamic, and hormone-dependent area (called clitorourethrovaginal, CUV, complex), extremely individual in its development and action due to the combined influence of biological and psychological aspects, which may trigger vaginally induced orgasm, and in some particular cases also female ejaculation.
The first time I had sex on camera, getting fucked was easier.
Drones have been a key part of warfare for years, but they’ve generally been remotely controlled by humans. Now, by cobbling together readily available image-recognition and autopilot software, autonomous drones can be mass-produced on the cheap. [...] “How can you control 90 small drones if they’re making decisions themselves?” Kayser said. Now imagine a swarm of millions of drones.
Taking Academic Corruption to a New Level -- The e-cigarette company Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal, with all the articles written by authors on its payroll, to ‘prove’ that its product has a public benefit.
Cigarette maker Philip Morris to buy UK producer of respiratory treatments
NYC’s new biometrics privacy law takes effect -- businesses that collect biometric information — most commonly in the form of facial recognition and fingerprints — are required to conspicuously post notices and signs to customers at their doors explaining how their data will be collected
Amazon.com Inc. has won U.S. permission to use radar to monitor consumers’ sleep habits.
Facebook is ditching plans to make an interface that reads the brain -- Some scientists said it was never possible anyway.
Facebook fired 52 people from 2014 to August 2015 over abusing access to user data, a new book says. One person used data to find a woman he was traveling with who had left him after a fight, the book says.
orgasm consistency through sexual intercourse had a stronger influence on orgasm satisfaction and sexual satisfaction than orgasm consistency through oral sex, stimulation by the partner’s hand, or self-stimulation
How many parents regret having children and how it is linked to their personality and health
Why Do People Watch Porn? An Evolutionary Perspective on the Reasons for Pornography Consumption
People open to new food are rated as more desirable and more sexually unrestricted
Of all the animals Clarence Birdseye devoured during his three years in Labrador, lynx was the most memorable -- "soaked for a month in sherry, pan-stewed, and served in a brown gravy"
People eat more when eating with friends and family, relative to when eating alone
Elon Musk’s testimony in Tesla lawsuit paused as lawyer vomits in jury box
Man and woman fight over who should pick up dog vomit, woman cited as aggressor
South Korean toilet turns excrement into power and digital currency
The analysis shows negative returns on investment for more than 80% of brands, implying over-investment in advertising by most firms. Further, the overall ROI of the observed advertising schedule is only positive for one third of all brands.
As a newborn mammal opens its eyes for the first time, it can already make visual sense of the world around it. But how does this happen before they have experienced sight? A new Yale study suggests that, in a sense, mammals dream about the world they are about to experience before they are even born. [...] waves of activity emanate from the neonatal retina in mice before their eyes ever open [...] This activity disappears soon after birth and is replaced by a more mature network of neural transmissions of visual stimuli to the brain, where information is further encoded and stored. [YaleNews]
It arrived at the height of the pandemic, in a brown envelope with no return address and too many stamps, none of which had been marked by the post office. It was addressed to me at my parents’ New York City apartment, where I haven’t lived in more than a decade. Inside the envelope was a small, stapled book—a pamphlet, really—titled “Foodie or The Capitalist Monsoon that is Mississippi,” by a writer named Stokes Prickett. On the cover, there was a photograph of a burrito truck and a notice that read “Advance Promotional Copy: Do Not Read.”
Horrifying robot plays basketball at Olympics
Who Hates Magic? Exploring the Loathing of Legerdemain
Four-day week 'an overwhelming success' in Iceland -- The trials, in which workers were paid the same amount for shorter hours, took place between 2015 and 2019. Productivity remained the same or improved in the majority of workplaces, researchers said.
38% of American remote workers work from bed, 45% from a couch
Virtual contact worse than no contact for over-60s in lockdown, study
In May, several French and German social media influencers received a strange proposal. A London-based public relations agency wanted to pay them to promote messages on behalf of a client. A polished three-page document detailed what to say and on which platforms to say it. It asked the influencers to push not beauty products or vacation packages, as is typical, but falsehoods tarring Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine. Stranger still, the agency, Fazze, claimed a London address where there is no evidence any such company exists. [Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming]
a single object alone can feel heavier than a group of objects that includes the single object
There is a harrowing story in The New Yorker that everyone should grit their teeth and read. Written by Rachel Aviv, it tells the story of how a respected German psychologist named Helmut Kentler decided to foster neglected children with pedophiles, how he ran this experiment with government support for decades after the 1960s, and how it created exactly the kind of hells you would expect. [NY Times]
why our eyes are unable to focus on the color blue
Our everyday experience informs us that a human observer is capable of observing one set of physical circumstances at a time. Evidence from psychology, though, indicates that people may have the capacity to make observations of mutually exclusive physical phenomena
All cancers fall into just two categories, according to new research
How a baby-faced CEO turned a Farmville clone into a massive Ponzi scheme
Inside the PAC operation that raised millions by impersonating Donald Trump -- billions of robocalls [...] almost all of which feature recorded soundbites of public statements from Trump
Vasya has 2 sisters more than he has brothers. How many daughters more than sons do Vasya’s parents have? -- 77 problems
Why does “Turn! Turn! Turn!” equal 241217.524881 on Google?
How many robots does it take to run a grocery store?
HAD TOO USE PARACHUTE LIKE BABY
Just like snakes, a lizard sticks out its tongue to catch scent particles in the air and then pulls back its tongue and places those particles on the roof of its mouth, where there are special sensory cells. The lizard can use these scent “clues” to find food or a mate or to detect enemies.
The weird world of Australian sea snakes
How many artists overshadow their band after going solo?
In the six studies we conducted, we consistently reported that clone images elicited higher eeriness than individuals with different faces; we named this new phenomenon the clone devaluation effect.
Mother kills husband with boiling water after learning he allegedly sexually abused children for years -- Smith killed her husband Michael in such a painful and cruel way. To throw boiling water over someone when they are asleep is absolutely horrific,” said Detective Chief Inspector Paul Hughes. “The sugar placed into the water makes it vicious. It becomes thicker and stickier and sinks into the skin better. It left Michael in agony.
The profile of the alleged abuser, by itself, was unusual: not a priest, but rather a teenage altar boy, who was said to have coerced a peer to engage in various sex acts night after night over six years, inside the Vatican’s own walls. Then powerful church figures helped him become a priest.
Germany Found a Way to Reduce Polarization. The country’s robust investment in public media has helped it reduce political divisions.
TikTok is taking the book industry by storm, and retailers are taking notice
Agatha Christie is probably one of the first British ‘stand-up surfers’
I think the Voynich manuscript hasn't been decoded because it cannot be decoded. My belief is that it's written by someone suffering not from migraines but rather from schizophrenia. -- Amateur armchair theories about the Voynich manuscript
The story goes that Tazartès went into the woods, dug a hole, and then sang so loudly that the ducks on the lake began to shake. [...] His second album, Tazartès Transports (1980), took this sound further. He collaborated with Jean-Pierre Lentin, editor of the counter-cultural magazine Actuel, who wrote a series of fake ethnographic texts describing the music of invented regions.