Chinese criminal gangs are spreading swine fever using drones to force farmers to sell pigs cheaply so they can profit A scientific meeting on coronaviruses was cancelled due to coronavirus Frustration grows in China as face masks compromise facial recognition [Thanks Tim] Live Facial Recognition Is Coming to U.S. Police Body Cameras Company is applying artificial intelligence to government-owned surveillance and traffic cameras across the entire state of Utah to tell police about "anomalies." In addition to more than 2,200 law enforcement agencies, Clearview’s software had been sold to companies in 27 countries, including major U.S. retailers such as Macy’s, Walmart, and Best Buy. This dissertation examines how first impressions influence decision-making, why people persistently rely on first impressions, and how the influence of first impressions can be reduced. Tilting the face upward increased dominance and decreased physical attractiveness All… Read More...

Snoop Dogg employs a full-time blunt roller Insufficient sleep lowers lifespan, but it means you spend more hours awake per day... could outweigh dying sooner? OH (a former CTO of Autodesk): “I can walk through most buildings and tell you which version of AutoCad was used to design it.” A standard response of both policy makers and private citizens to hardships—from natural disasters to mass shootings—is to offer “thoughts and prayers.” Critics argue that such gestures are meaningless and may obstruct structural reforms intended to mitigate catastrophes. In this study, we elicit the value of receiving thoughts and prayers from strangers following adversity. We find that Christians value thoughts and prayers from religious strangers and priests, while atheists and agnostics are “prayer averse”—willing to pay to avoid receiving prayers. Furthermore, while indifferent to receiving thoughts from other secular people, they… Read More...

studies have shown that America has been getting more narcissistic since the Seventies [...] one study found narcissistic traits to be rising as quickly as obesity, while yet another showed that almost one-third of high school students in America in 2005 said that they expected to eventually become famous. [Rolling Stone] French company liable after employee dies during sex on business trip Human corpses move around significantly as they decompose, according to an Australian researcher who observed a dead body over a 17-month period Google Maps shows sunken car where missing man’s body was found Feds served Google with a search warrant, asking for data that would identify any Google user who had been within 100 feet of the bank during a half-hour block of time around the robbery. Google Has My Dead Grandpa’s Data And He Never Used The… Read More...

Man Hospitalized for 10+ Day Erection Florida man reports handgun stolen during orgy at his home Computers start to take over leadership functions once performed by human leaders, e.g., assigning tasks to human workers Should we eat our research subjects? – it seems that Animal Studies scholars are divided on that issue; some do, some don’t study found a strong correlation between adultery and workplace misconduct by corporate executives and financial advisers 91.4% of worries did not come true for those with generalized anxiety disorder Self-Checkout Thievery “Anyone who pays for more than half of their stuff in self checkout is a total moron.” Do We Create Shoplifters? Scientists develop 'artificial tongue' to detect fake whiskies. The technology can also be used to identify poisons as well as to monitor rivers. When you go to a website and load a… Read More...

It seems that as we get older our ears get bigger (on average by 0.22 mm a year). [PDF] The scrotum in humans is asymmetric, the right testicle being visibly higher than the left in most men. Paradoxically, it is also the case that the right testicle is somewhat larger, rather than smaller, as might be expected. [...] The cause of this asymmetry is not clear. We may however reject a simple mechanical explanation which would say that the heavier of the two organs is pulled to the lower position by the action of gravity, for in both adults and foetuses it is clear that the right testicle is both the heavier and also the greater in volume; that is the larger and heavier is also the higher. Such a relationship is counter-intuitive, and we may expect that it would… Read More...

many people will reject their own arguments – if they’re tricked into thinking that other people proposed them. [Neuroskeptic] According to a recent scientific study, the way to avoid mosquito bites is to listen to electronic music - specifically dubstep, specifically by US artist Skrillex [study] Physicists Reverse Time for Tiny Particles Inside a Quantum Computer A major Greenland glacier that was one of the fastest shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is growing again Growing Corn Is A Major Contributor To Air Pollution, Study Finds a cotton tote or a paper bag may be worse for the environment than a plastic one + organic cotton is worse than conventional cotton when it comes to overall environmental impact More than 99.9999 per cent of all living organisms on Earth died. The Day the Dinosaurs Died A doomsday fungus known… Read More...

How do we navigate a deeply structured world? Why are you reading this sentence first - and did you actually look at the fifth word? the intensity of the emotional response people experience when they act dishonestly is reduced every time they lie Mum changes her son’s name after tattoo artist spelled it wrong Fukushima’s nuclear signature found in California wine McDonald’s Sued For $1.5M By Customer Who Wanted More Than 1 Napkin Man arrested after trying to pay for meal with credit card stolen from waitress Man accused of faking own kidnapping to get money from his family Televangelist says Jesus asked him to buy a new private jet, asks his followers to buy him the $54 million jet The blue lights are meant to discourage people from using drugs in store bathrooms by making it more difficult for… Read More...

The Game is a mental game where the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss. Our results show that monkeys form preferences for brand logos repeatedly paired with images of macaque genitals and high status monkeys It is often claimed that negative events carry a larger weight than positive events. Loss aversion is the manifestation of this argument in monetary outcomes. In this review, we examine early studies of the utility function of gains and losses, and in particular the original evidence for loss aversion reported by Kahneman and Tversky (Econometrica 47:263–291, 1979). We suggest that loss aversion proponents have over-interpreted these findings. [Psychological Research] The most successful people are not the most talented, just the luckiest, a new computer model of wealth creation confirms Hackers stole a casino's high-roller database through a thermometer in the… Read More...

People don’t remember changing their minds People avoid learning the calories in a tempting dessert to protect their preferences to eat the dessert. People sometimes choose to remain ignorant. Enormous emotional support peacock denied seat on flight, owner not pleased Passenger turned away from two flights after wearing 10 layers of clothing to avoid luggage fee She was told all bags had to go through the X-ray machine, but she refused to part with her handbag Hairdresser Arrested for Giving a Bad Haircut You can now buy “premium” water that’s not only free of GMOs and gluten but certified kosher and organic. Never mind that not a single drop of water anywhere contains either property or is altered in any way by those designations. A man who claims to be a time traveller has reportedly passed a lie-detector test while… Read More...

Detroit police officers fight each other in undercover op gone wrong Chinese restaurant offers discounts to women depending on their bra size Participants rated women in less revealing and less tight clothing more positively. Males were perceived as being more likely to be creepy than females. Only four occupations were judged to be significantly higher than the neutral value of “3” on the creepiness rating scale: Clowns, Taxidermists, Sex Shop Owners, and Funeral Directors. [On the nature of creepiness | PDF] Teen Girl Posed For 8 Years As Married Man To Write About Baseball And Harass Women Strange-face illusions are produced when two individuals gaze at each other in the eyes in low illumination for more than a few minutes. Usually, the members of the dyad perceive numinous apparitions, like the other’s face deformations and perception of a stranger or… Read More...

On the Inability to Ignore Useless Advice Multiple arrested after fight inside Berkeley’s ‘empathy tent’ Senate map gerrymandered for senator’s house Entrepreneurs are finding profits turning human waste into fertiliser, fuel and even food. The new economy of excrement 16 Ways QR Codes are Being Used in China Chinese sex doll rental service suspended amid controversy Chang et al. investigated the well-known asymmetry of the scrotum in man and showed that in right-handed subjects the right testis tended to be higher, whereas the converse applied in left-handed subjects. [Nature | PDF] Do Men Overestimate or Women Underreport Their Sexual Intentions? Eye movements of 105 heterosexual undergraduate students (36 males) were monitored while viewing photographs of men and women identified as a potential mate or a potential friend. Results showed that people looked at the head and chest more when assessing potential mates… Read More...

The idea behind power poses, that if you stand in a "powerful" position, broad posture, hands on hips, shoulders high and pushed back, you will suddenly feel psychologically and physiologically stronger, is intuitively appealing, especially for people without much confidence. The problem is that it's simply not true, according to University of Pennsylvania researchers. [...] "We did find that [...] if you're a loser and you take a winner or high power pose, your testosterone decreases." In other words, Smith said, "people might not be able to 'fake it until they make it,' and in fact it might be detrimental." [EurekAlert] Human brain is predisposed to negative stereotypes, new study suggests When judging other people, first impressions last Another classic finding in psychology—that you can smile your way to happiness—just blew up. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute… Read More...

Families sue US sperm bank after 'genius' donor turns out to be felon with mental health issues. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States and some other countries, but are absent in China The Longest Word in the World (189,819 letters) [disputed whether it is a word] The best day and time to hold a meeting: Tuesday, 2:30pm, according to a study People who talk for more than roughly half minute at a time are boring and often perceived as too chatty Psychologists have identified the length of eye contact that people find most comfortable (just over three seconds) Study Shows Mediums Are Wrong 46.2% of the Time People who made detailed predictions about sporting events (e.g., how many hits each baseball team would get) made worse predictions about more general outcomes… Read More...

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