» 2018 » October Epicene Cyborg

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October 31, 2018

The Big Meltdown. As the Antarctic Peninsula heats up, the rules of life there are being ripped apart. Alarmed scientists aren’t sure what all the change means for the future.

Caravan Provides a Preview of Climate Migrations, Experts Say. One day, it’ll be Americans pushing into (much warmer) Canada just like this.

Why Intentional Communities Fail.

Nearly half of clinical trials go unreported, evidence suggests.

Saint-Gaudens double eagle.

Gold regulators.

The Unhealthy = Tasty Intuition and Its Effects on Taste Inferences, Enjoyment, and Choice of Food Products.

Chinese Mountain Cat.

12 Young People on Why They Probably Won’t Vote. Smart young people. Because voting won’t change a thing, and no matter who you vote for you, you’re voting for evil.

Declines Hit the Most Splendid Housing Bubbles in America. Hey, what could never happen (again) is happening (again)!

Kepler, the Little NASA Spacecraft That Could, No Longer Can.

Middle-class jobs fall short: 62% fail to support lifestyle in US.

October 30, 2018

These Americans fled the country to escape their giant student debt. Drastic actions like this will become more common as debt slavery increases.

The Internet Is Bad Now.

The Cult of the Form.

Psychopaths are attracted to other psychopaths.

French was the first language to standardise [ʁ] and under its influence, other languages took it up.

100,000 Words Whose Pronunciations Have Changed.

Who decides your gender? Gender self-identification is often cited as a matter of civil rights. It is more problematic than many advocates realise.

How Golden Star Tunicates Make Themselves at Home in an Alien Ecosystem.

Despite extensive analyses, we failed to reproduce Job et al.’s (2010) key findings: (a) a significant main effect of ego depletion (i.e., worse Stroop performance in the depletion condition than in the control condition) and (b) a significant moderation of this ego-depletion effect by individual differences in willpower mindset (i.e., primarily individuals holding the belief that willpower is limited demonstrate the ego-depletion effect). Willpower depletion and “grit” both did not reproduce.

These findings provide evidence of an early brain sensitivity to visual attributes that constitute secondary sexual characteristics.

Vegetarians report lower self-esteem, lower psychological adjustment, less meaning in life, and more negative moods.

We’ve written about Nicholas-Josef Cugnot’s fardier à vapeur before, but you need to see the thing moving to get an understanding of just how ingenious and terrible this beast is. I want one.

A breathtaking discovery. A fossil shows that early birds quickly evolved flight-adapted lungs.

A lazy buzz phrase – ‘Is this the new normal?’ – has been doing the rounds as extreme climate events have been piling up over the past year. To which the riposte should be: it’s worse than that – we’re on the road to even more frequent, more extreme events than we saw this year.

This Is Why You’re Seeing The Confederate Flag Across Europe. I saw it in Germany several years ago.

October 29, 2018

Here’s a web page published in 1994. Your browser can still read it. That’s a minor miracle.

One of the most pronounced characteristics of the neoliberal mentality is competitiveness.

Cerebellum checks and corrects thoughts, movement.

Discovering Mysterious Features On Saturn’s moon Dione.

There have been 47,220 gun incidents in the U.S. in 2018 — and here they all are on one map.

Unique aquatic tarantulas ‘more like fish’.

How the Department of Homeland Security Created a Deceptive Tale of Russia Hacking US Voter Sites.

Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?

The 50 Best Final Shots in Movie History.

Bluetooth headphones are popular, but science confirms: mostly terrible. Fuck phones without headphone jacks. Fuck every motherfucker who had anything to do with that.

Cesar Sayoc’s Home Was Fraudulently Foreclosed on by Steve Mnuchin’s Bank.

A Proof About Where Symmetries Can’t Exist.

October 28, 2018

Red-Hot Economy? Women Aren’t Convinced.

Making the Case for Corduroy Furniture. I’m in.

Nihilism…helps to account not only for Trump, but also and more importantly for the phenomena he has come to personify (berserker gun violence, climate-change denial, etc.)—all of which were present before he entered the Oval Office and are likely to be around long after he’s gone.

Vital Ignored Truths in Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Studies.

Donald Trump didn’t start the fire: Here are things the midterms can’t fix. An appalling week of mail bombs, Trump tweets and Megyn Kelly overload should remind us: Politics won’t fix America. Agreed. All solutions are beyond politics now, and vice versa.

It’s baby boomers who are the worst victims of the internet: technologically dumb, easily scammed, and often more susceptible to fake news.

How Private Equity Bankrupted Seven Major Grocery Chains for Fun and Profit.

Environmental Regulation Has Helped Cut Deaths From Air Pollution in Half, Study Finds.

Cuttlefish wear their thoughts on their skin.

“Stress Hormone” Cortisol Linked to Early Toll on Thinking Ability. Brain changes, visible on scans, are also associated with Alzheimer’s precursors.

Airbnb is a parasitic monster that squats over cities and hoovers up vast sums of money through its slimy proboscis.

Lowly Moss-Like Plant Seems to Copy Cannabis. Watch who you’re calling “lowly,” pal.

Raising of Chicago.

Friendly Floatees.

October 27, 2018

Shun The Climate Change Deniers.

Oldest known footprints in the Grand Canyon found. Exposed by a rockfall, the oddly angled tracks offer a rare glimpse into early animal behavior.

In Groundbreaking Decision, Feds Say Hacking DRM to Fix Your Electronics Is Legal.

Nation Transfixed In Horror By Toy Bombs While Destroying Lives With Real Ones.

How to transform economics and systems of power? Critical lessons from the neoliberal/neoconservative take-over.

We’re addressing gender disparity in engineering way too late. If there were 50% women engineers working on smartphones, I can guarantee there’d be some damn small options.

Writing well ≠ dumbing down.

The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Tyranny or Revolution.

Why Private Equity Is Furious Over a Paper in a Dermatology Journal.

Working Like Crazy May Actually Be, Well, Crazy. There is no “may” about it.

Laser Scanning Archaeopteryx.

October 26, 2018

Frankenstein at 200. Mary Shelley’s creation is the rare story to pass from literature into common myth, inspiring a seemingly endless stream of adaptations. It boggles my mind when I think Shelley was only 18-19 when she wrote Frankenstein.

Remote Hawaiian Island Wiped Off The Map.

First analysis of ‘pre-registered’ studies shows sharp rise in null findings.

How Wall Street Drove Public Pensions Into Crisis and Pocketed Billions in Fees.

Tall people at greater risk of cancer ‘because they have more cells.’

Obama Calls Trump “Tin-Pot Dictator”, Takes Credit For “Economic Miracles.” Fuck that guy. And the other guy too.

What Happens When Humans Fall In Love With An Invasive Species.

Astronomers spot signs of supermassive black hole mergers.

October 25, 2018

Traumatic events increase the risk of depression, but there is also evidence that adversity can lead to posttraumatic growth, including increased compassion and prosocial behavior.

Weird water phase “ice-VII” can grow as fast as 1,000 miles per hour.

How Sears Was Gutted By Its Own CEO. Eddie Lampert not only ran the company; he was also its largest creditor and the guy who sold major Sears assets to. Remember this when you hear tale of how Amazon destroyed Sears, etc.

RIP Google, a ‘Search Engine’ from 1998-2018.

Millennial Gigs vs. Baby Boomer Careers.

Student-Loan Debt Is Bringing on Millennial Class War. A new analysis shows the snowball effects of college debt—from credit cards to the size of your house. It will come to a head.

2018’s ‘especially astounding’ hurricane season is a warning of what’s to come.

Democrats can’t win until they recognize how bad Obama’s financial policies were.

Candy is controversial. Scouring the globe in search of the sweet stuff reveals just how different our palates are — and how much we have in common. I miss the candies in Egypt.

A high culture takes centuries to build, but can be erased in a few decades, as we may see soon in Europe. I hate to agree with this but it seems to be the plan.

October 24, 2018

Bullying is the most traditional and respected form of masculinity.

When science hits a limit, learn to ask different questions.

The Rise of Sucker-Punch Hurricanes.

The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture.

UHD Orbits of Saturn.

Epistemic spillovers: Learning others’ political views reduces the ability to assess and use their expertise in nonpolitical domains.

The Student Loan Debt Crisis Is About to Get Worse. The next generation of graduates will include more borrowers who may never be able to repay.

As U.S. fertility rates collapse, finger-pointing and blame follow. New data confirms historic declines across all races, in both urban and rural areas. What economic insecurity and high inequality do to a country.

The Death of the First Amendment in Cyberspace.

Sooty Feathers Tell the History of Pollution in American Cities.

GM’s data mining is just the beginning of the in-car advertising blitz. Fuck all of this.

The joy when others are even worse off than ourselves. This is at least 80% of the basis of Republican ideology right here.

First Impressions of Personality Traits From Body Shapes.

Longevity and sexual maturity vary across species with number of cortical neurons, and humans are no exception.

Eating Locally and in Season: Is It Really Better for the Environment?

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