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Extraordinary Photographs of Animals Inside the Womb

From an upcoming National Geographic documentary.

Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour

A study published in Nature: "Here we show that the sublingual administration of a single dose of testosterone in women causes a substantial increase in fair bargaining behaviour, thereby reducing bargaining conflicts and increasing the efficiency of social interactions. However, subjects who believed that they received testosterone—regardless of whether they actually received it or not—behaved much more unfairly than those who believed that they were treated with placebo. Thus, the folk hypothesis seems to generate a strong negative association between subjects’ beliefs and the fairness of their offers, even though testosterone administration actually causes a substantial increase in the frequency of fair bargaining offers in our experiment."

Senator allowed to vote four months after she was diagnosed with dementia

Note that this not only followed a diagnosis of dementia but her being declared "legally incompetent"

Tanner v. United States

What does it take to get the results of a US jury trial overturned? Apparently the following isn't reason enough: "the jury had been consuming copious amounts of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during the course of the trial and deliberations."

I first stumbled across this story here. One thing to note:

They have all signed legally binding contracts. If a woman responds to a kiss by opening her eyes and “waking,” she must marry the man. The man must marry the woman.

Modern marriage... presumably far less binding than any contracts they might have signed.

Boys on the Side

"The hookup culture that has largely replaced dating on college campuses has been viewed, in many quarters, as socially corrosive and ultimately toxic to women, who seemingly have little choice but to participate. Actually, it is an engine of female progress—one being harnessed and driven by women themselves." An argument that a feminist society requires something like hookups to succeed.

The Undeniable Allure of Potential

Some experimental results: "They found that people playing the role of basketball coach preferred a rookie player with great potential over an established player with a great record. ... Other participants playing the role of recruiting manager preferred a candidate with a high score on a leadership potential test, and thought he/she would perform better in the future, as compared with an equally qualified candidate (both had MBAs from NYU) with a high score on a leadership achievement test. ... participants chose between pairs of paintings (judged as similarly appealing in pilot research) after reading profiles of the two artists who created the works. People tended to prefer the painting attributed to an artist who was described as having the potential to win a major art prize, as compared with the painting by an artist who was already a major prize winner."

Scientists Closer to Birth Control Pill for Men

The article mentions that "some women are wary, saying they might not count on the male contraceptive pill alone." Of course that could go both ways.

Bystanders shot outside Empire State Building all hit by police gunfire

"All nine people wounded during a dramatic confrontation between police and a gunman outside the Empire State Building were struck by bullets fired by the two officers, police said Saturday, citing ballistics evidence." The gunman in question had shot a former co-worker prior to the chase, but the remaining casualties all appear to be police-inflicted.

I came across a Fox News article titled Driver's seat safer than sidewalk for older adults. To quote one researcher cited in the article:

Assessing whether older adults can drive is important, but the problem is it leads to policies which are becoming tighter and tighter and distract us from older adults at risk as pedestrians

The article notes the following:

Researchers found the risk of being killed when traveling on foot was five times higher for older people than for the young.

That brings me to the related question then of whether a similar focus would lead to an increase in drunk driving. To quote Steven Levitt of Freakonomics:

every mile walked drunk ... turns out to be eight times more dangerous than the mile driven drunk.

Five times the risk for old people to walk instead of to drive versus eight times more dangerous to walk drunk versus driving drunk. The real issue seems to me to be the risk to others on the road which the article doesn't really get into.

There may be something to the article's assertion that seniors aren't as risky drivers as portrayed, but I'll leave discussion of that for another day.