(no subject)

Air Force missile launch crew fell asleep

2002 Justice memo OKs CIA interrogation tactics

"Wall St. got drunk." You don't say!

Washington Mutual Slumps as Gimme Credit Cites Liquidity Concern

. . . Gimme Credit LLC? Really?

(seen in the_recession)

Science!

Why play a losing game? Study uncovers why low-income people buy lottery tickets: Carnegie Mellon research points to poverty's influence (thanks, dsgood)

Although state lotteries, on average, return just 53 cents for every dollar spent on a ticket, people continue to pour money into them — especially low-income people, who spend a larger percentage of their incomes on lottery tickets than do the wealthier segments of society. A new Carnegie Mellon University study sheds light on the reasons why low-income lottery players eagerly invest in a product that provides poor returns.

In the study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, participants who were made to feel subjectively poor bought nearly twice as many lottery tickets as a comparison group that was made to feel subjectively more affluent. The Carnegie Mellon findings point to poverty's central role in people's decisions to buy lottery tickets.

[...] "State lotteries are popular revenue sources that are unlikely to go away anytime soon," said George Loewenstein, a study co-author and Herbert A. Simon professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon. "However, it is possible to implement measures that can actually benefit low-income lottery players and lead to fairer outcomes." Loewenstein noted that one such potential method for addressing income inequality, which has shown promise in other countries, is tying lottery tickets to savings accounts.

(no subject)

Northern lights mystery solved -- "A flotilla of NASA probes traces the source of colorful aurora displays to 'substorms' triggered by the collision of magnetic bands far from Earth."

It just makes sense.

Licking your wounds: Scientists isolate compound in human saliva that speeds wound healing -- histatin

alarms lowered

The text of Chris Todd's words have allayed my fears. Somewhat. Still, he's not deconstructing the paradigm of which he speaks--he seems to be preserving it.

( Read more... )

genetic roll of the dice

Black and white twins: Brothers from the same mother -- Odds are "one in a million," but it seems to be happening a lot in the last handful of years. What I think would be amazing would be to have fraternal twins, opposite sex, different skin tone, hair type & eye color. That would be a sight to see.

Edit: Actually, I was thinking a little deeper than I'd originally stated. I'm imagining an egg that splits in two before fertilization and the two are fertilized by different sperm cells (the polar body phenomenon).

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In other news: 'Yeti hair' to get DNA analysis

mixing politics & religion is explosive; one wall we need to rebuild is that between church & state

Fate of Obama note alarms rabbis (alerted by ljdemocrats)

Senior rabbis have criticised the apparent removal and publication of a prayer note left in the Western Wall by Barack Obama on his visit this week.

[...] A note, or prayer, jammed into one of many cracks in the wall, is considered a sacred act - whether or not the worshipper is Jewish.

[...] Twice a year, when the cracks in the Wall become full, the prayers and messages are removed and buried - without being read - in strict accordance with Jewish law.

Guardian's take

(Also, tangential webcrawling brought up this. Wow.)

dsgood comes up with great stuff

Mindfulness meditation slows progression of HIV, study shows: Reducing stress can bolster immune system in HIV-positive adults, others

The Lightness of Electrons in a Twisting Metal Crystal: Watching a crystal of bismuth metal in a powerful magnetic field, researchers discover new states of electrons that behave like light