Swedish Bank Robber Busted by Forgotten Urine.

Lockheed Martin Tried to Trade F-16s for Frozen Chickens.

China Threatens Death Penalty for Food Safety Violations.

Boy found dead in oven at his family’s home.

“I Just Broke Into A House And The Owner Came Home,” Intruder Tells 911 Operator. “I think she’s got guns.”

People in Seattle who would never touch heroin are trying fentanyl. What they don’t know is that it’s basically the same thing, only stronger.

Less educated police officers are found to be more likely to use force.

Idaho Rancher Revealed as Gangster From Boston. A wanted man started over with a new name and a new life in Idaho, but then his past caught up with him.

Big-screen TV stolen in reverse prison break.

More than 60 people, including ‘Snoop’ of ‘The Wire,’ arrested in drug raids in Baltimore.

‘Half-fro’ mug shot of dealer caught mid-haircut.

About one in 20 survey participants reported they’d dozed off while driving at least once in a month.

Where does WikiLeaks keep its secrets? In a former military bunker and nuclear shelter under Stockholm’s city streets.

The government’s unnoticed Europe crisis.

Daniel Kish has been sightless since he was a year old. Yet he can mountain bike. And navigate the wilderness alone. And recognize a building as far away as 1,000 feet. How? The same way bats can see in the dark.

Professor Tim Birkhead is one of the pioneers of spermatology. He explains how promiscuous females can be selective about sperm, even after multiple inseminations.

Has Viagra helped endangered species by reducing demand for rhino horn, etc?

How anger can make us more rational.

How well our brain functions is largely based on our family’s genetic makeup, according to a new study.

Tropical Water Ice Discovered On Mars.

India’s space agency announced it had discovered an enormous volcanic cave under the surface of the moon.

In this article, I focus on the definition of one word in particular: probability.

Introduction to Sociosystemics: Science About the Utilizing of Social Sciences. And (whatever that means): The semiotic organization of the research process in the social sciences.

Should Computer “Languages” Qualify as Foreign Languages for Ph.D.s?

Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You.

Is Twitter Worth More Than We Think? CNBC’s John Melloy mentions what may be the best analysis I’ve seen on the “Charlie Sheen effect.”

Can Punk Change the Way We Think About Law?

A Dynamic Theory of Battle Victory and Defeat.

Notes On Asymmetric War.

Did Archaeologists Uncover Blackbeard’s Treasure? Cannons. Gold dust. Turtle bones. For archaeologists researching the notorious pirate’s flagship, every clue is priceless.

After earning a fortune processing online-porn payments, Chris Mallick spent $32 million to make Middle Men, a movie about his fabulous rise. It bombed; but that was just the beginning of his problems.

Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?

The MGM follies began in 2004, when its owner, Kirk Kerkorian, who had made a fortune buying and selling MGM, decided the time was ripe to sell it yet again.

The Confidence Man. How Lalit Modi, possessed of inhuman energy, ambition and audacity, built a billion-dollar cricket kingdom—only to be rudely ejected from its throne.

Two of Wall Street’s savviest value investors, Bruce Berkowitz and David Einhorn, pride themselves on their rigorous analysis. Now they’re locked in a scorched-earth dispute over the value of some Florida real estate. How could they look at the same facts and reach such wildly different conclusions, and what does that say about the “value” of value investing?

‘Tiger, Tiger’ by Margaux Fragoso: The Incandescent Memoir of a Real-Life Lolita.

Is it possible for fraternal twins to have different fathers?

Tom Waits has teamed up with The David Lynch Foundation to help launch DLF Music and their ‘Download for Good’ campaign on PledgeMusic.

The Story of Eames Furniture: Marilyn Neuhart with John Neuhart - Interview. [video]

The complexities of our brain. [video]

The 10 Most Innovative Companies in Music.

How to make really good coffee.

Start watching the video above and you may not believe that it features an ordinary chessboard.

Alexander Calder’s code.

Insane asylum plans.

Writes 2 kms.

Florida church billboard welcomes “Scumbags.”

Art Boobs.

For Y’ur Height Only.

Woman on the phone.

Whoopla.

Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth’s history, according to a paper released by Nature.

Over the past 540 million years, five mega-wipeouts of species have occurred through naturally-induced events.

But the new threat is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study.
Evidence from fossils suggests that in the “Big Five” extinctions, at least 75 percent of all animal species were destroyed.

Palaeobiologists at the University of California at Berkeley looked at the state of biodiversity today, using the world’s mammal species as a barometer.

Until mankind’s big expansion some 500 years ago, mammal extinctions were very rare: on average, just two species died out every million years.

But in the last five centuries, at least 80 out of 5,570 mammal species have bitten the dust, providing a clear warning of the peril to biodiversity.

{ The Independent | Continue reading }

images { 1. Erik Foss | 2. Alejandro Garcia }

Sex would be a very different proposition for humans if — like some animals including chimpanzees, macaques and mice — men had penises studded with small, hard spines.

Now researchers at Stanford University in California have found a molecular mechanism for how the human penis could have evolved to be so distinctly spine-free. They have pinpointed it as the loss of a particular chunk of non-coding DNA that influences the expression of the androgen receptor gene involved in hormone signalling.

The research also suggests a molecular mechanism for how we evolved bigger brains than chimpanzees and lost the small sensory whiskers that the apes — who are amongst our closest relatives and with whom it has been estimated we share 96% of our DNA — have on their face.

{ Nature | Continue reading }

artwork { Tom Gallant, Japanese Iris, 2010 | Cut paper, glass, wood }

The brain may manage anger differently depending on whether we’re lying down or sitting up, according to a study published in Psychological Science that may also have worrying implications for how we are trying to understand brain function. (…)

A field of study called ‘embodied cognition‘ has found lots of curious interactions between how the mind and brain manage our responses depending on the possibilities for action.

For example, we perceive distances as shorter when we have a tool in our hand and intend to use it, and wearing a heavy backpack causes hills to appear steeper.

{ Mind Hacks | Continue reading }

The principle of all things entrails made


Of smallest entrails; bone, of smallest bone,


Blood, of small sanguine drops reduced to one;


Gold, of small grains; earth, of small sands compacted


Small drops to water, sparks to fire contracted.

{ Lucretius quoted by Ralph W. Emerson | Continue reading }

{ Bon Jane }

In the mid 1920s, Berger invented the electroencephalagraph (EEG), a technique for measuring the electrical activity of brains. Unfortunately, Berger didn’t understand electricity very well, so didn’t have a clear understanding of what his recordings might mean. But he revolutionized the study of human brains.

Perhaps nowhere was Berger’s invention put to greater use than in the study of sleep. Before that, what did we know of brains while we slept? (…)

Berger’s invention continues to deepen our understanding of sleep, nearly a century after its invention, as shown by a new paper by KcKinney and colleagues.

{ NeuroDojo | Continue reading }

related { Short on sleep, the brain optimistically favors long odds }

painting { John Kacere }

{ A small number of randomly selected legislators should make parliaments more effective, say a group of IgNobel prize-winning scientists. | The Physics arXiv Blog | full story | Photo: Tim Davis }

Since morals didn’t come from a God, where did they come from?

Nietzsche answered that question in 1887 with his Genealogy of Morals, which is the best, and by far the clearest, introduction to Nietzsche’s overall project. In short, the first essay in the three-part Genealogy argues that morality itself, the whole idea of good versus evil, came about when weak people figured out a way to make strong people feel bad about being strong. The reason we feel that we should take pity on the weak, or feel bad for imposing our wills on others, is that long ago, in some dark, underground workshop of the spirit, the weak had invented “morals” to compensate for their weakness.

Instead of just straightforwardly hating their enemies, they declared that their superiors stood under the judgement of a higher authority, God, whose law condemned them. And then, amazingly, they had convinced the strong to accept these twisted ideals as The Way Things Ought To Be.

{ Fred Sanders | Continue reading }

Dazzle camouflage, also known as Razzle Dazzle or Dazzle painting, was a camouflage paint scheme used on ships, extensively during World War I and to a lesser extent in World War II. Credited to artist Norman Wilkinson, it consisted of a complex pattern of geometric shapes in contrasting colours, interrupting and intersecting each other.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading | more photos }

Face-detection software is everywhere. Defeat it with some artfully-applied, avant-garde face makeup called CV Dazzle.

CV Dazzle is named after the ingenious warship-camouflage designs deployed during World War I. Rather than actually hiding military vessels, the bold, jagged paint jobs made it difficult for naval rangefinders to discern details about the ship’s size, heading, armament, and so forth. Or at least, that was the idea — unlike Harvey’s digital version, the original Dazzle’s effectiveness was never proven. Of course, CV Dazzle benefits from the fact that face-detection software is much stupider than WWI seamen: you only have to apply a few strokes of face-paint to confuse it, rather than coat your whole kisser.

{ Fast Company| Continue reading }

The brain does not stop developing until we are in our 30s or 40s – meaning that many people will still have something of the teenager about them long after they have taken on the responsibilities of adulthood.

The finding, from University College London, could perhaps help explain why seemingly respectable adults sometimes just can’t resist throwing a tantrum or sulking until they get their own way.

The discovery that the part of the brain key to getting on with others takes decades to fully form could perhaps also explain why some people are socially awkward well past their teenage years.

Neuroscientist Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore said: ‘Until about 10 years ago, it was pretty much assumed that the human brain stops developing in early childhood.

‘But we now know that is far from the truth, in fact most regions of the human brain continue to develop for many decades.

{ Daily Mail | Continue reading }

photo { Fette Sans }

{ Carrie and Zach }

In a book to be published in April, “The Origins of Political Order,” Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University presents a sweeping new overview of human social structures throughout history. (…)

Dr. Fukuyama, a political scientist, is concerned mostly with the cultural, not biological, aspects of human society. But he explicitly assumes that human social nature is universal and is built around certain evolved behaviors like favoring relatives, reciprocal altruism, creating and following rules, and a propensity for warfare.

Because of this shared human nature, with its biological foundation, “human politics is subject to certain recurring patterns of behavior across time and across cultures,” he writes. It is these worldwide patterns he seeks to describe in an analysis that stretches from prehistoric times to the French Revolution.

Previous attempts to write grand analyses of human development have tended to focus on a single causal explanation, like economics or warfare, or, as with Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel,” on geography. Dr. Fukuyama’s is unusual in that he considers several factors, including warfare, religion, and in particular human social behaviors like favoring kin.

Few people have yet read the book, but it has created a considerable stir in universities where he has talked about it.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

photo { Nathan Osterhaus }

An investigation conducted at the Edinburugh Science Festival by psychologists James Houran, Caroline Watt and Richard Wiseman looked into what topics of conversation are the most sucessful in a dating situation. One hundred randomly selected participants (50 men and 50 women) engaged in the scientific speed dating. (…)

Talking about films was the least successful topic with only 9% saying that they would like to see the other person again, whilst 18% who discussed travel (the most popular topic) wanted to meet again. The poor showing for film was attributed to the differences in film tastes between men and women, also Wiseman observed that whenever he walked past the film table the participants were just arguing!

Also discovered was that 45% of womens descisions were made during the first 30 seconds, whilst only 22% of men made their descision in that time.

{ B Good Science | Continue reading }

…everyone will agree that there are no restraints against the formation of organic compounds from non-organic reactants.  This has been demonstrated since 1952 when Stanley Miller and Harold Urey did their famous experiment. (…) In fact, organic compounds have been found in the oddest places; Titan,  nebula, and meteorites.

Now, the question, of course, is how did these disparate pieces come together and form the living system we see today?

{ Cassandra’s Tears | Continue reading }

The Miller and Urey experiment was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested for the occurrence of chemical origins of life.

Specifically, the experiment tested Oparin’s and Haldane’s hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life, it was conducted in 1952 and published in 1953.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

installation { Dimension/Next, Miller-Urey Bong, 2010 | Dimension/Next specifically proposes that the addition of C21H30O2 to the existing Miller-Urey hypothesis of CH4 + NH3 + H2 + H20 has a high chance of producing exceptional results. }

Supposing truth is a woman - what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper methods for winning a woman’s heart?

{ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1885-86 | Continue reading }

related { circa 1730: Female orgasm officially demoted. }

from Australia { Shaun Gladwell, Interceptor Surf Sequence, 2009 }

Two leading neuroscientists, Christof Koch and Susan Greenfield, disagree about the activity that takes place in the brain during subjective experience.

How brain processes translate to consciousness is one of the greatest un­­-­solved questions in science. Although the scientific method can delineate events immediately after the big bang and uncover the biochemical nuts and bolts of the brain, it has utterly failed to satisfactorily explain how subjective experience is created.

As neuroscientists, both of us have made it our life’s goal to try to solve this puzzle. We share many common views, including the important acknowledgment that there is not a single problem of consciousness. Rather, numerous phenomena must be explained—in particular, self-consciousness (the ability to examine one’s own desires and thoughts), the content of con­sciousness (what you are actually conscious of at any moment), and how brain processes relate to consciousness and to nonconsciousness.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading | PDF | More: Our intuitions about consciousness in other beings and objects reveal a lot about how we think }

mixed media { Douglas Gordon, Straight to Hell, 2011 }

While the United Nations and NATO come to their own policy positions, here is what I would do were I the Commander-in-Chief. In the middle of the night (tonight!) I’d send stealth aircraft and drop electromagnetic pulse weapons on all 13 Libyan Air Force bases as well as on selected Libyan Army bases and current battlefield targets. It’s hard to imagine needing more than 24 devices. These devices would destroy all command-and-control capability on both sides, fuse all military electronics, take out the mobile and wired phone networks, and probably shut down large parts of the Libyan electrical grid, ideally with little loss of life.

There are two ways to inflict such electromagnetic damage: 1) detonate a nuclear device in the atmosphere high over Libya, or; 2) use quite simple explosive devices pioneered in Russia and Los Alamos in the 1950s, each capable of doing the damage of dozens of simultaneous lightning strikes.

I’d choose door number 2.

By dawn, with the exception of the odd surviving tank, the Libyan war would be down to boots and AK-47s with the victor being he who commands more of both.

One more thing, though. If I were the President and ordered such a strike, I’d also order that it remain a state secret, which is the only reason that stealth aircraft would be needed — to avoid a radar record of the attack.

{ Robert X. Cringely | Continue reading }

more { Qaddafi Forces Renew Assault Against Rebels on 2 Fronts | And it will continue until the government falls or all the protest leaders are dead. Not until the protests end—until the leaders are dead. | America’s secret plan to arm Libya’s rebels }

At the height of his fame and success, whilst his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Oscar Wilde sued his lover’s father for libel. After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and imprisoned for two years, held to hard labour.

In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure.

Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

Wilde was released from prison 19 May 1897, and wandered between a small band of friends in England, France and Italy for the next few years. Since the death of his wife in 1898 he had been denied access to his two sons and given £150 a year from her estate to live on.

In August 1899, he moved from the Hotel Marsollier to the Hotel d’Alsace on the Rue des Beaux-Arts (today this is just called L’Hotel), the owner, Jean Dupoirier, having paid off Wilde’s debts at the former hotel.

He spent the days wandering the streets of Paris, drinking with old friends and supporters who would bump into to him and, shocked by his appearance, feed him, or being blanked by former friends.

His former lover Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) inherited £20,000 on the death of his father, the Marquess of Queensbury, the cause of Wilde’s downfall.

During a meal at the Café de la Paix, Wilde asked Bosie if he could have an income from his money. Bosie said, “I can’t afford to spend anything except on myself,” and accused Wilde of “wheedling like an old whore.”

Wilde replied, “If you do not recognise my claim, there is nothing more to be said.”

{ Find a death | Continue reading }

photo { Oscar Wilde (at left) and Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas in Oxford, 1893 | The Private Life of Oscar Wilde | W | full story }