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4 annoying ways climate change will make your life a bummer
Get ready for bumpy flights, horrible allergies, and watered-down beer. Climate change will definitely affect you. -
Scientists: Why penis size does matter
Women prefer big penises, thunders a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. (Say it out loud.) Researchers had 105 women rate computer-generated nude images of male bodies on a scale of 1 to 7.
“As you increase penis size, the amount of attractiveness scores gets bigger,” said post-doctoral researcher Brian Mautz.
Since early humans didn’t wear clothes, male penises were obvious to women. So if women chose their mates based on the size of their genitalia, it’s possible that these decisions influenced the evolution of bigger penises, according to National Geographic.
Oh. Thank goodness for clothes, then. And having a face.
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At $109 billion in direct care, dementia costs the U.S. more than heart disease and cancer. That’s not even accounting for the unofficial costs of caring for a person with dementia, usually provided by family members, which would add an additional $50 billion to $106 billion to that number.
Why is dementia costing us so much?
Photo from Jonathan Alcorn/ZUMA/Corbis
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On this day in 1970, President Nixon signed a bill limiting cigarette advertisements on TV and radio. Nixon, who was an avid pipe smoker, indulging in as many as eight bowls a day, supported the legislation at the urging of public health advocates. There had been warnings about the dangers of smoking as far back as 1939, and by the end of the 1950s, all states had laws banning the sale of cigarettes to minors. In 1964, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed that advertisers had a responsibility to warn the public of the health hazards of cigarette smoking.
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Photos taken over nine consecutive days demonstrate the air pollution levels in the sky over Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Air quality in Beijing has been at “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” levels since the beginning of this year. PHOTO: REUTERS/Wei Yao
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Which one of these drinks is more processed?
The Coca-Cola Company spent $114 million in recent years expanding its juice bottling plant in Auburndale, Fla., and developing a high-tech process for homogenizing juice, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. The operation includes use of satellite imagery, a 1.2-mile juice pipeline, and a complex “Black Book” algorithm which helps juice-makers manage weather patterns, predict crop yields, and measure acidity and sweetness of the crop — all to achieve absolute consistency from batch to batch.
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Your bathroom scale isn’t lying: You really are gaining winter weight. Consider it an unmistakable reminder that long before we were regularly bombarded by ads featuring the immaculate abs of celebrities and multi-day cleanses that taste like grass clippings, our ancestors needed those extra couple of pounds to protect them against the season’s inclement weather. From an evolutionary standpoint, it’s why that extra helping of pasta, that greasy slice of pizza, or even that stale, sprinkled donut all appear extra tempting when the temperature drops a few degrees.
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I did some actual journalism and wrote an article about internet addiction for The Week magazine, and interviewed the head of an Internet Addiction Rehab. Here’s an excerpt.
Researchers have noted a rise in something called Digital Attention Disorder — the addiction to social networks and computers in general.
How does it work? More than 50 years ago, psychologist B.F. Skinner was experimenting on rats and pigeons, and noticed that the unpredictability of reward was a major motivator for animals. If a reward arrives either predictably or too infrequently, the animal eventually loses interest. But when there was anticipation of a reward that comes with just enoughfrequency, the animals’ brains would consistently release dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that (basically) regulates pleasure.
What does this have to do with the internet? Some researchers believe that intermittent reinforcement — in the form of texts, tweets, and various other social media — may be working on our brains the same way rewards did on Skinner’s rats.
“Internet addiction is the same as any other addiction — excessive release of dopamine,” says Hilarie Cash, executive director of the reStart program for internet addiction and recovery, a Seattle-area rehab program that helps wean people off the internet. “Addiction is addiction. Whether it’s gambling, cocaine, alcohol, or Facebook.”
And thus begins my contributions to The Week!
Welcome!
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40 years later, Roe v. Wade is still under siege. The pro-abortion-rights Americans who fought to win the landmarkdecision might not recognize today’s bruised-and-battered version of the law.
(Source: theweek.com)
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In an attempt to reassure consumers that drinking sugary, carbonated beverages is a-okay, Coca-Cola has released two new commercials highlighting the ways the company is helping to reduce obesity. ”Across our portfolio of over 650 beverages, we now offer over 180 low- and no-calorie choices,” says the narrator of one commercial, titled “Come Together.” The ad goes on to say that calories from soda are no different than any other calories we put into our bodies every day, and suggests that it’s the consumer’s responsibility to burn off what he or she takes in.
A second commercial says a can of Coke contains 140 “happy” calories that can be spent doing “happy” things, like walking your dog and laughing out loud.
(Source: theweek.com)
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The moment Armstrong lays blame on his sponsors (for tacitly knowing about it, and even funding his habit) or on the cycling world, or on anything else is the moment where you might want to just turn off the television, because you’ll know that he really isn’t very sorry for anything. He’s just sorry that the proof of his doping became too overwhelming for his own ego to continue to deny.
— Marc Ambinder says Lance Armstrong deserves nothing -
Wanna be a better writer? Try writing by hand.
Many famous authors opt for the meticulousness of writing by hand over the utility of a typewriter or computer. In a 1995 interview with the Paris Review, writer Susan Sontag said that she penned her first drafts the analog way before typing them up for editing later. “I write with a felt-tip pen, or sometimes a pencil, on yellow or white legal pads, that fetish of American writers,” she said. “I like the slowness of writing by hand.”
Novelist Truman Capote insisted on a similar process, although his involved lying down with a coffee and cigarette nearby. “No, I don’t use a typewriter,” he said in an interview. “Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand.” A 2009 study from the University of Washington seems to support Sontag, Capote, and many other writers’ preference for writing by hand: Elementary school students who wrote essays with a pen not only wrote more than their keyboard-tapping peers, but they also wrote faster and in more complete sentences.
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“She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop … This could have saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don’t think so.”
Self-described Indian “spiritual guru” Asaram Bapu told his followers that “guilt is not one-sided” in the case of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey who was brutally gang raped on a bus last month. She later died from her injuries.
Unfortunately, Bapu is not alone in his mindset. Here, 6 examples of politicians blaming the victim.
Photo: AP/Saurabh Das
