Good Reads

[Laurel]

Every generation has its death and for many teenagers the death of a celebrity is how they learn about mortality

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/7/16/1373984069013/Corey-Monteith-010.jpg

The night before it was announced that Cory Monteith, the 31-year-old star of the hugely popular and very fun TV show Glee, was found alone and dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, I was thinking about River Phoenix. This October, it will be 20 years since Phoenix, then 23, died on a sidewalk in LA while his sister Rainbow and girlfriend Samantha Mathis stood helplessly by and his little brother frantically called 911. Those of a younger generation may need reminding that River was Joaquin's older brother. Those of my generation and older will doubtless be reeling at the realisation it has been two decades since Phoenix went from being one of the world's most famously promising actors to one of its infamously dead.
...
For millions of teenagers, the announcement of Monteith's death was as shocking as Phoenix's and Kurt Cobain's were for the now 30 and 40somethings, as Ledger's was for today's 20somethings. Every generation has its death and, for many teenagers, the death of a teen icon is how they learn about mortality. While it is true that social media can encourage the fetishisation of collective grief, equally, just because it is expressed in 140 characters, does not mean it isn't truly felt.​

- read the full article Cory Monteith: the Glee star's death is an all-too familiar teen idol plotline (from The Guardian)​

 

[Laurel]

http://www.gq.com/images/news-and-politics/2011/11/jay-shaw/jay-shaw-inset-01.jpg

Ten years ago, a man moved to Marsing, Idaho. He had a strange accent and didn't know much about cattle. The folks in Marsing were a little skeptical at first, but when he built a house and started a family, he earned his neighbors' acceptance. Last February, while buying hay, he was cornered by federal agents and arrested for violent crimes tied to the Boston Mob. And the town wondered: Who the hell is Jay Shaw?​

- read the full article His Own Private Idaho (from GQ)​

 

[Laurel]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1xk4gidGgZc/UTo9ZMm1HFI/AAAAAAAAGZ0/FiR1NSfXXGc/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-03-08+at+19.34.09.png

Michael Kraus and Teh-Way David Chen recruited four coders (blind to the aims of the study) to assess the presence of smiles, and smile intensity, in photographs taken of 152 fighters in 76 face-offs. Fighter smiles were mostly "non-Duchenne", with little or no crinkling around the eyes. Data on the fights was then obtained from official UFC statistics. The researchers wanted to test the idea that in this context, smiles are an involuntary signal of submission and lack of aggression, just as teeth baring is in the animal kingdom.

Consistent with the researchers' predictions, fighters who smiled more intensely prior to a fight were more likely to lose, to be knocked down in the clash, to be hit more times, and to be wrestled to the ground by their opponent (statistically speaking, the effect sizes here were small to medium). On the other hand, fighters with neutral facial expressions pre-match were more likely to excel and dominate in the fight the next day, including being more likely to win by knock-out or submission.​

- read the full article Smiling fighters are more likely to lose (from Research Digest)​

 

[Laurel]

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/files/2011/10/Phillipafawcett-363x500.jpg

To be a woman in the Victorian age was to be weak: the connection was that definite. To be female was also to be fragile, dependent, prone to nerves and—not least—possessed of a mind that was several degrees inferior to a man’s. For much of the 19th century, women were not expected to shine either academically or athletically, and those who attempted to do so were cautioned that they were taking an appalling risk. Mainstream medicine was clear on this point: to dream of studying at the university level was to chance madness or sterility, if not both.

It took generations to transform this received opinion; that, a long series of scientific studies, and the determination and hard work of many thousands of women. For all that, though, it is still possible to point to one single achievement, and one single day, and say: this is when everything began to change. That day was June 7, 1890, when—for the first and only time—a woman ranked first in the mathematical examinations held at the University of Cambridge. It was the day that Philippa Fawcett placed “above the Senior Wrangler.”​

- read the full article The Woman Who Bested the Men at Math (from Smithsonian Magazine)​

 

[Laurel]

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/files/2013/07/asteroid-impact-Ron-Miller.jpg

Ron Miller wanted to be a scientist. “Since I was little, I have loved astronomy,” he says. “But it didn’t take me long to realize that you have to have some kind of abilities in math to be a scientist—and all numbers over 80 look pretty much alike to me.”

So, while keeping up his interest in science, Miller pursued another love, art. He earned a degree in illustration from Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio in the 1960s. “It eventually occurred to me that I could combine the two, and do scientific artwork,” he says.

Miller tested his hand at astronomical paintings. When he heard the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was opening a planetarium in the 1970s, he sent some of his artwork, effectively convincing the museum to hire him as the facility’s art director. He held this post at the Albert Einstein Planetarium for five years before embarking on a career as a freelance illustrator in 1977.

Recently, Miller released a series of images that shows what our skyline would look like if other planets were as close as the moon is to Earth. He has also created a compelling series depicting the apocalypse. While some of the end-of-the-world scenarios are pure fantasy, most are actually scientifically plausible.​

- read the full article The End of the World Might Just Look Like This (from Smithsonian Magazine)​

 

[Laurel]

No one is entirely sure when magical penis loss first came to Africa. One early incident was recounted by Dr. Sunday Ilechukwu, a psychiatrist, in a letter some years ago to the Transcultural Psychiatric Review. In 1975, while posted in Kaduna, in the north of Nigeria, Dr. Ilechukwu was sitting in his office when a policeman escorted in two men and asked for a medical assessment. One of the men had accused the other of making his penis disappear. This had caused a major disturbance in the street. As Ilechukwu tells it, the victim stared straight ahead during the examination, after which the doctor pronounced him normal. “Exclaiming,” Ilechukwu wrote, “the patient looked down at his groin for the first time, suggesting that the genitals had just reappeared.”

According to Ilechukwu, an epidemic of penis theft swept Nigeria between 1975 and 1977. Then there seemed to be a lull until 1990, when the stealing resurged. “Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their genitalia either openly or discreetly with their hand in their pockets,” Ilechukwu wrote. “Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly, by crossing the hands across the chest. . . . Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxes. This led to further breakdown of law and order.” In a typical incident, someone would suddenly yell: Thief! My genitals are gone! Then a culprit would be identified, apprehended, and, often, killed.

During the past decade and a half, the thievery seems not to have abated. In April 2001, mobs in Nigeria lynched at least twelve suspected penis thieves. In November of that same year, there were at least five similar deaths in neighboring Benin. One survey counted fifty-six “separate cases of genital shrinking, disappearance, and snatching” in West Africa between 1997 and 2003, with at least thirty-six suspected penis thieves killed at the hands of angry mobs during that period. These incidents have been reported in local newspapers but are little known outside the region.​

- read the full article A Mind Dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves (from Harpers Magazine)​

 

[Balladeer08]

This thread is amazing.

 

[blackleggings]

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/files/2013/07/asteroid-impact-Ron-Miller.jpg

Ron Miller wanted to be a scientist. “Since I was little, I have loved astronomy,” he says. “But it didn’t take me long to realize that you have to have some kind of abilities in math to be a scientist—and all numbers over 80 look pretty much alike to me.”

So, while keeping up his interest in science, Miller pursued another love, art. He earned a degree in illustration from Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio in the 1960s. “It eventually occurred to me that I could combine the two, and do scientific artwork,” he says.

Miller tested his hand at astronomical paintings. When he heard the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was opening a planetarium in the 1970s, he sent some of his artwork, effectively convincing the museum to hire him as the facility’s art director. He held this post at the Albert Einstein Planetarium for five years before embarking on a career as a freelance illustrator in 1977.

Recently, Miller released a series of images that shows what our skyline would look like if other planets were as close as the moon is to Earth. He has also created a compelling series depicting the apocalypse. While some of the end-of-the-world scenarios are pure fantasy, most are actually scientifically plausible.​

- read the full article The End of the World Might Just Look Like This (from Smithsonian Magazine)​

These are frighteningly beautiful.

 

[Phelia]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1402181.1374159108!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/00502858-jpg.jpg

For dutiful wives, getting undressed was easier said than done in the 1930s.
Roll your panty-hose down while sitting — don’t bunch — and keep your legs tightly crossed. Never pull your dress over your head — always unzip and shimmy out, then hang it up. And don't dare work on two sides at once.

That’s according to a baffling rulebook published decades ago by LIFE Magazine, a meticulous, step-by-step guide for women on how to take their clothes off in front of their husband.

The rules — complemented by instructional “do” and “don’t” photographs — were the foundation of the Allen Gilbert School of Undressing, a New York City business whose founder was known for putting on shows at “topnotch burlesque houses as Manhattan’s Apollo and Philadelphia’s Schubert,” according to the article, published Feb. 17, 1937

Read the full article Advice from the 1930s: How to undress for your husband, (from NY Daily News)​

 

[Colonel Hogan]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1402181.1374159108!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/00502858-jpg.jpg

For dutiful wives, getting undressed was easier said than done in the 1930s.
Roll your panty-hose down while sitting — don’t bunch — and keep your legs tightly crossed. Never pull your dress over your head — always unzip and shimmy out, then hang it up. And don't dare work on two sides at once.

That’s according to a baffling rulebook published decades ago by LIFE Magazine, a meticulous, step-by-step guide for women on how to take their clothes off in front of their husband.

The rules — complemented by instructional “do” and “don’t” photographs — were the foundation of the Allen Gilbert School of Undressing, a New York City business whose founder was known for putting on shows at “topnotch burlesque houses as Manhattan’s Apollo and Philadelphia’s Schubert,” according to the article, published Feb. 17, 1937

Read the full article Advice from the 1930s: How to undress for your husband, (from NY Daily News)​

The rules and tips forgot to mention that they work best when your wife looks like the blonde in the photo. It at least maximizes the odds that he'll actually be watching.

 

[Laurel]

This thread is amazing.

These are frighteningly beautiful.

My feelings exactly. If that's th apocalypse, then our last moments will beautiful.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1402181.1374159108!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/00502858-jpg.jpg

For dutiful wives, getting undressed was easier said than done in the 1930s.
Roll your panty-hose down while sitting — don’t bunch — and keep your legs tightly crossed. Never pull your dress over your head — always unzip and shimmy out, then hang it up. And don't dare work on two sides at once.

That’s according to a baffling rulebook published decades ago by LIFE Magazine, a meticulous, step-by-step guide for women on how to take their clothes off in front of their husband.

The rules — complemented by instructional “do” and “don’t” photographs — were the foundation of the Allen Gilbert School of Undressing, a New York City business whose founder was known for putting on shows at “topnotch burlesque houses as Manhattan’s Apollo and Philadelphia’s Schubert,” according to the article, published Feb. 17, 1937

Read the full article Advice from the 1930s: How to undress for your husband, (from NY Daily News)​

Awesome.

The rules and tips forgot to mention that they work best when your wife looks like the blonde in the photo. It at least maximizes the odds that he'll actually be watching.

Yeah, they should demonstrate with average housewives. If the tips work then, they're good tips.

 

[Laurel]

from 2011, but interesting

http://www.wired.com/magazine/wp-content/images/19-11/ff_marsmission_f.jpg

In a secluded area on the ground floor, six brave young men (three Russians, an Italian, a Frenchman, and a Chinese national) are simulating a mission to Mars. For 520 straight days—that’s more than 17 months—the volunteers will be sequestered in a tubular steel stand-in for a spacecraft whose 775-square-foot living area is so cramped and spare it might have been designed by Dostoyevsky himself. Mars500, as their mission is called, is jointly sponsored by the Institute for Biomedical Problems and the European Space Agency. It seeks to answer a question that looms as the EU, the US, Russia, and India all look to put a man on Mars by the 2030s: Can the human animal endure the long isolation and boredom implicit in traveling to a planet that is, at its closest, 35 million miles—and roughly six months of rocket travel—away? Will one of the volunteers crack before the faux mission’s scheduled conclusion on November 5, 2011?​

- read the full article 6 Guys in a Capsule: 520 Days on a Simulated Mars Mission (from Wired)​

 

[MaineFemale]

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1402181.1374159108!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/00502858-jpg.jpg

For dutiful wives, getting undressed was easier said than done in the 1930s.
Roll your panty-hose down while sitting — don’t bunch — and keep your legs tightly crossed. Never pull your dress over your head — always unzip and shimmy out, then hang it up. And don't dare work on two sides at once.

That’s according to a baffling rulebook published decades ago by LIFE Magazine, a meticulous, step-by-step guide for women on how to take their clothes off in front of their husband.

The rules — complemented by instructional “do” and “don’t” photographs — were the foundation of the Allen Gilbert School of Undressing, a New York City business whose founder was known for putting on shows at “topnotch burlesque houses as Manhattan’s Apollo and Philadelphia’s Schubert,” according to the article, published Feb. 17, 1937

Read the full article Advice from the 1930s: How to undress for your husband, (from NY Daily News)​

It's amazing how disciplined women were...and really, men too. They had a lot of social rules they followed with women and business, hence the name "gentleman". As challenging as those times were (as is true for all generations), I do think we lost something special we'll never regain. Society as a whole here has become too "anything goes". We're really not a respectable country at all. I was born and raised in the US and would never leave because this is my home, but I really feel like the US has become the ghetto, globally speaking.

 

[Laurel]

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/03/Confuciusornis.jpg

Look at the leg of almost any bird and you’ll see feathers covering the thigh but scales covering everything from the ‘knee’ downwards. There are a couple of exceptions—some birds of prey look like they’re wearing baggy trousers and golden eagles have fluffy foot feathers for insulation. But for the most part, living birds have naked lower legs.

It wasn’t always this way. We know that birds evolved from small two-legged, meat-eating dinosaurs that were covered in simple fuzzy feathers. Those on their arms eventually became longer and flatter, evolving from hollow tubes into flat asymmetrical vanes. They transformed from “dino-fuzz” into flight feathers, and their arms transformed into wings.

Meanwhile, it’s tempting to think that the feathers on their hind legs gradually became smaller and gave way to scales. But that’s not how it happened. For a start, we know that some small dinosaurs had long feathers on their legs as well as their arms. And now, 11 newly analysed fossils tell us that some early birds shared the same feature. These specimens suggest that some of our feathered friends had four wings.​

- read the full article The Rise and Fall of Four-Winged Birds (from National Geographic Phenomena)​

 

[Laurel]

.

LOL

http://static.thepessimist.com/uploads/2013/03/do-not-disturb-the-sexy.jpg

We can all agree on one thing: the problem with America today is that everybody is too polite. It’s annoying! Everywhere you go, it’s strangers tipping their hats to you as they walk down the sidewalk, whistling a jaunty tune. Drivers on roadways insisting that you go ahead of them, and then giving you a smile and a wave. Store clerks and waiters earnestly thanking you for their business. And it’s got to stop.

Luckily, New York Times writer Nick Bilton is on the case. In an article that he will probably one day regret writing, the technology journalist rails against the habit that threatens to destroy the very fabric of American civilization as we know it:

Some people are so rude. Really, who sends an e-mail or text message that just says “Thank you”? Who leaves a voice mail message when you don’t answer, rather than texting you? Who asks for a fact easily found on Google? Don’t these people realize that they’re wasting your time?

Finally. It’s about time someone said it: basic human decency is a complete waste of time, and people who exhibit even a passing concern for others’ feelings are destroying America, not to mention personally offending Nick Bilton — which is, let’s be honest, the worst crime of all.

I mean, the man is busy! Do you have any idea how much of his time is wasted by getting text messages that say “Thank you”? Each message wastes — hold on, let me do the math – one second of his precious, precious life. And when you multiply that by the number of people who are grateful to Nick Bilton for something, you’re talking about three seconds per year that he could be spending writing ill-considered think pieces about how people should be more considerate to Nick Bilton. Consider this:...​

- read the full article Thank You, Jerk: On Digital Etiquette (from The Pessimist)​

 

[Laurel]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/03/14/us/PHONE/PHONE-tmagArticle.jpg

If you have just read the same paragraph 12 times because the person sitting next to you on the bus is chatting on her cellphone, feel free to show her this: scientists have found another piece of evidence that overheard cellphone conversations are far more distracting and annoying than a dialogue between two people nearby.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, college students who were asked to complete anagrams while a nearby researcher talked on her cellphone were more irritated and distracted — and far more likely to remember the contents of the conversation — than students who worked on the same puzzles while the same conversation was conducted by two people in the room.

The study is the latest in a growing body of research on why cellphones rank so high on the list of modern irritants. Mounting evidence suggests that the habits encouraged by mobile technology — namely, talking in public to someone who is not there — are tailor made for hijacking the cognitive functions of bystanders.​

- read the full article Cellphones as a Modern Irritant (from Well - The New York Times)​

 

[trysail]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/03/14/us/PHONE/PHONE-tmagArticle.jpg

If you have just read the same paragraph 12 times because the person sitting next to you on the bus is chatting on her cellphone, feel free to show her this: scientists have found another piece of evidence that overheard cellphone conversations are far more distracting and annoying than a dialogue between two people nearby.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, college students who were asked to complete anagrams while a nearby researcher talked on her cellphone were more irritated and distracted — and far more likely to remember the contents of the conversation — than students who worked on the same puzzles while the same conversation was conducted by two people in the room.

The study is the latest in a growing body of research on why cellphones rank so high on the list of modern irritants. Mounting evidence suggests that the habits encouraged by mobile technology — namely, talking in public to someone who is not there — are tailor made for hijacking the cognitive functions of bystanders.​

- read the full article Cellphones as a Modern Irritant (from Well - The New York Times)​

I am willing to wager that in the coming decades— due solely to the proliferation of these profane yapper-enabling devices— the already frighteningly low average intelligence of the general public will decline by a measureable amount.

 

[Laurel]

http://www.orionmagazine.org/i/article_images/F7_Montgomery.jpg

ON AN UNSEASONABLY WARM day in the middle of March, I traveled from New Hampshire to the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium, hoping to touch an alternate reality. I came to meet Athena, the aquarium’s forty-pound, five-foot-long, two-and-a-half-year-old giant Pacific octopus.

For me, it was a momentous occasion. I have always loved octopuses. No sci-fi alien is so startlingly strange. Here is someone who, even if she grows to one hundred pounds and stretches more than eight feet long, could still squeeze her boneless body through an opening the size of an orange; an animal whose eight arms are covered with thousands of suckers that taste as well as feel; a mollusk with a beak like a parrot and venom like a snake and a tongue covered with teeth; a creature who can shape-shift, change color, and squirt ink. But most intriguing of all, recent research indicates that octopuses are remarkably intelligent.

Many times I have stood mesmerized by an aquarium tank, wondering, as I stared into the horizontal pupils of an octopus’s large, prominent eyes, if she was staring back at me—and if so, what was she thinking?
...
The moment the lid was off, we reached for each other. She had already oozed from the far corner of her lair, where she had been hiding, to the top of the tank to investigate her visitor. Her eight arms boiled up, twisting, slippery, to meet mine. I plunged both my arms elbow deep into the fifty-seven-degree water. Athena’s melon-sized head bobbed to the surface. Her left eye (octopuses have one dominant eye like humans have a dominant hand) swiveled in its socket to meet mine. “She’s looking at you,” Dowd said.​

- read the full article Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus (from Orion Magazine)​

 

[oggbashan]

http://www.orionmagazine.org/i/article_images/F7_Montgomery.jpg


Many times I have stood mesmerized by an aquarium tank, wondering, as I stared into the horizontal pupils of an octopus’s large, prominent eyes, if she was staring back at me—and if so, what was she thinking?
...
read the full article Deep Intellect: Inside the mind of the octopus (from Orion Magazine)​

The intelligence of Octupuses inspired me to write my parody of tentacle sex: http://www.literotica.com/s/the-giant-squid

 

[Phelia]

Laurel, you are so cool. I LOVE cephalopods, the Pessimist article was great, and four-winged dinosaurs?

I actually saw a wonderful NOVA episode about the latter. Here's the link - they have a few scientists trying to recreate the hip joint from the crushed skeleton to understand its mobility and how it might have been used in flight.

 

[Laurel]

Laurel, you are so cool. I LOVE cephalopods, the Pessimist article was great, and four-winged dinosaurs?

I actually saw a wonderful NOVA episode about the latter. Here's the link - they have a few scientists trying to recreate the hip joint from the crushed skeleton to understand its mobility and how it might have been used in flight.

SWEET. Right up my alley. Gonna watch this once I get done tallying the special contest votes.

 

[Laurel]

The intelligence of Octupuses inspired me to write my parody of tentacle sex: http://www.literotica.com/s/the-giant-squid

I remember that one! Funny stuff.

 

[Laurel]

I am willing to wager that in the coming decades— due solely to the proliferation of these profane yapper-enabling devices— the already frighteningly low average intelligence of the general public will decline by a measureable amount.

I dunno. Can people get any dumber than they are now and still breathe unassisted? I'm not so sure some days.

 

[Laurel]

Laurel, you are so cool. I LOVE cephalopods, the Pessimist article was great, and four-winged dinosaurs?

I actually saw a wonderful NOVA episode about the latter. Here's the link - they have a few scientists trying to recreate the hip joint from the crushed skeleton to understand its mobility and how it might have been used in flight.

The octopus article above makes me so happy, I can't tell you. I loooove aquariums to an extent that I annoy my guy by wanting to visit one wherever we go. One we visited (Monterey Bay maybe? not sure) had a bat ray petting pool. It was aaawwwweeesoooommmee...

 

[Phelia]

This article is quite old and quite long, but it sticks out as one of those pieces that really helped to feed and encourage my curiosity about world and the universe. A bit of a puff piece on Venter, but I was fascinated. Also interesting to read again in light of what he's accomplished since.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/images/FF_106_venter3_f.jpg

You are standing at the edge of a lagoon on a South Pacific island [...] you see a man strolling in the shallows. He is bald, bearded, and buck naked. He stoops every once in a while to pick up a shell or examine something in the sand.

A lot of people wonder what happened to J. Craig Venter, the maverick biologist who a few years ago raced the US government to sequence the human genetic code. Well, you've found him. [...]

He's circling the globe in his luxury yacht the Sorcerer II on an expedition that updates the great scientific voyages of the 18th and 19th centuries, notably Charles Darwin's journey aboard HMS Beagle. But instead of bagging his finds in bottles and gunnysacks, Venter is capturing their DNA on filter paper and shipping it to be sequenced and analyzed at his headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The hope is to uncover tens or even hundreds of millions of new genes, an immense bolus of information on Earth's biodiversity.

read the full article Craig Venter's Epic Voyage the Redefine the Origin of Species (from Wired)​