A new first for a private spaceship.
You are looking at the first private spaceship that will dock with the International Space Station: a SpaceX Dragon on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. It’s the beginning of the future of manned space travel, people…
Continue reading… “The first private spaceship that will dock with the International Space Station”
Function words – those unassuming “filler” words like the, this, though, I, an, there, and, that – are mightier than you think. For one, they’re a very good predictor of sex and love.
Yes, sex and love. Now that I’ve got your attention, on to the story of how analyzing the patterns of the use of these words in speech between two strangers in a speed dating scenario can be a very good predictor of who will get the date…
Continue reading… “Word usage predicts dating success”
Meet Steve Schutz. Some might say he’s very dedicated to his work. But others would call him downright crazy. You see Steve works in an insectarium, a place where mosquitos are born and raised. And to ensure its residents are well-fed and propagate, he serves up his bare arm once a week for dinner.
As a result, after a feeding the 50 red welts on his lower arm barely even register as a slight tingle since Steve has built up an immunity to the mosquito’s saliva…
This googly eyed gentleman is named Dan Considine, and he’d like to take you on a tour of accents from across the globe, starting with the Land of Blarney and ending in the good ol’ U.S. of A…
Continue reading… “Around the world in accents”
The languages you know affect how you think.
Back in 2002, psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the economics Nobel Prize for showing that human beings don’t have a really good intuitive grasp of risk. Basically, the decisions we make when faced with a risky proposition depend more on how the question is framed than on what the actual outcome might be.
The classic example is to tell a subject that there’s going to be a disaster. Out of 600 people, she has a chance of saving 200 if she takes x risk. If she doesn’t take the risk, everybody dies. Most people will take the risk in that scenario, but if you present the same situation and frame it differently—”If you take this risk, 400 people will die”—the decisions suddenly flip in the other direction. Nothing has changed about the outcome. But everything has changed in terms of how people feel about the decision they have to make. This is the kind of thing that matters a lot to economics because it helps to explain why economic behavior in the real world isn’t always as rational and self-interested as it is in theory…
Continue reading… “Thinking in a different language affects how you make decisions”
It took four hours every week to wash her hair and an hour and a half to brush every day
There are certain drawbacks to having a five-foot-long mane of hair. Twelve-year-old Natasha Moraes de Andrade of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was proud of her hair, but it took hours to wash and comb it. Her family couldn’t turn on fans for fear of getting it caught. And riding a bicycle was out of the question. Still, getting her hair cut was a difficult decision.
‘I cried at first when I was at the hairdressers to get it cut,’ she says.
‘I was afraid I wouldn’t like it, and I was also scared I might not get the money I wanted for it…
Continue reading… “Girl cuts hair to buy house”
“The fact that children find animals so appealing suggests that children may benefit from having an animal, like a pet, in their lives.”
Kids as young as 11 months showed more interest in live animals than toys, even ones made to replicate real living creatures, it was found in a new study.
If you were ever curious as to how much body parts can fetch on the black market,Medical Transcription created a snazzy infographic to show you. Some parts are shockingly cheap! Like would you want a new shoulder or a new iPad? Both cost 500 bucks.
Other organs are prohibitively expensive, like a kidney. That little sucker costs $262,000 in the US (other countries have it for cheaper)! Here’s the full list of body parts and their cost…
Continue reading… “Here’s how much body parts cost on the Black Market”
If you do lots of push-ups, you get stronger – but if you do a lot of mental exercises, do you get smarter?
For most of human history, it’s accepted that you’re either born smart or (sadly) not and that there’s no amount of Sudoku that will make you smarter (sure you can be more knowledgable – say by educating yourself, but not intrinsically more intelligent).
But that common wisdom may be wrong: studies show that you can increase your smarts by improving your memory through certain types of games…
Continue reading… “How to make yourself smarter”
What are the best ways to deal with a deceased love one online?
Your friends and family are going to die. Probably later, but maybe sooner. That much is certain. Another certainty is that, when it happens, we’ll all still be using some form of social media. Here’s how to grieve digitally, with dignity.
As much as Facebook is the sprawling, glowing, inexorable way we connect with each other these days—around the clock—death just doesn’t really belong there. Facebook is designed specifically to make you feel proud about yourself. Timeline is a monument to your joys and achievements, no matter how superficial and beer-soaked they may have been. It’s a place toshare your glee—share it all over everyone’s faces, whether they like it or not…
Continue reading… “How to Deal with Death Online the Right Way”
The dead want an iPhone?
Apple’s iPhone is so popular in China that even the dead want one! It’s the latest trend in burnt paper offering, a distinctly Chinese tradition where Hell Bank Notes, and paper items resembling cars, luxury villas, computers and so on, are burnt to send to the deceased…
Continue reading… “Paper iPhones as burnt offerings for the dead”
Most of our childhoods were spent alternatingly dressing up like superheroes and playing with action figures in their likeness. Now you can combine the two by actually getting your own head on the body of your favorite superhero, like Batman or Superman, on one of these custom action figures.
All you’ve got to do is send Personalised Superhero Action Figures two photos of yourself—one portrait and one profile—and the company will use them to make your noggin into an action figure…
Continue reading… “Now you can turn yourself into a Batman Action Figure”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.
