PHOTO: Michael Newman.

Speaking of obvious research results, the New York Times posted a piece yesterday highlighting a new sex study from the University of Iowa that concluded the following:

...compared with those in serious relationships, people hooking up with a stranger or acquaintance and lovers in “friends with benefits” arrangements are much more likely to sleep around simultaneously.

...it may be that the people who are likely to enter non-serious sexual relationships are predisposed to be non-exclusive — not that the nature of the relationship itself causes non-monogamy.

In other words, what we seem to have here is a study showing that people who are having casual sex do it because they like it, and are likely to be having quite a bit of it.

For me, the money question is not so much “WHY, SCIENCE? WHY?” but “Why did you go and use old data—collected in 1995, apparently—for this seminal (heh) study?” Maybe it’s just me, but I think work of this significance warrants fresh data.

PHOTO: Rakka.

The BBC published an article last Friday subtitled “A future in which robots help around the home could prove harmful to humans, suggests a study.” Oh really? Under what circumstances?

The tests involved a robot arm weighing 14kg and a 1.1m reach that was equipped with a variety of bladed household tools including a steak knife, kitchen knife, scissors and screwdriver.

The robot arm was programmed to use the bladed tools to stab and cut a silicone lump, a leg from a dead pig and the arm of a human volunteer.

Striking, stabbing and puncturing tests with the safety system turned off were performed on the silicone and pig leg. Deep cuts resulted in most cases that, the researchers said, could prove to be “lethal” if inflicted on a living subject.

I was unable to find a link to the research itself, which was apparently presented at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, but here is a video showing how a safety protocol preventing the robots from colliding with other objects could help to minimize the risk of horrible injuries from robots programmed to stab things.

Awesome. Hey, I wonder if not programming robots to stab things might be another way to do that? Just a thought, though. Don’t mind me, pioneering robotics researchers.

(PHOTO: OkCupid)

It’s probably not exactly a secret to Inkling’s enlightened readers, but this meticulously laid out post on the blog of the dating site OkCupid argues that more men ought to consider dating older women, because:

1) They’re better in bed.
2) They’re happier and more confident.
3) They’re “better looking than you realize.”

(As a qualified “older woman"—at 31! Sheesh—I say check, check, ouch.)

At any rate, the post, though long, is well organized and a fun read. Calculus is involved.

Thanks to Inkling author Anya Weber for the tip.

PHOTO:Miles Tsang

This tragic, yet somehow life-affirming, story comes to us via the inimitable Improbable Research, creators of the Ig Nobel Prizes. You should all subscribe to their newsletter and site feeds post haste.

This report describes the difficulty in evaluating a patient with multiple traumas because he was covered with paint poured from a truck in a car accident...A 29-year-old male patient was admitted to the emergency department following the collision of his car with a paint-carrying truck. His head, face, neck and hands were covered with a cyan-blue oil paint, and bloody “paint mud” covered all frontal and occipital areas of the scalp.

CONCLUSION: Removal of the paint from the skin and the eyes was a prerequisite for the evaluation of the underlying structures. It is difficult to find a cleansing material that can be used effectively and safely in different parts of the body.

You can read the full paper here.

PHOTO:Anna-rchy

British newspapers are reporting this week that biological psychologist Colin Hendrie, of the University of Leeds, has just completed a study showing that a woman seeking to entrap a man should bare precisely 40% of her skin. Less and you’re neglected, more and you’re avoided.

Says the Telegraph of the study’s methods:

Four female researchers… discreetly observed women at one of the city’s biggest nightclubs from a balcony above the dance floor. Using tape recorders hidden in their handbags, the researchers took note of what female clubbers were wearing and how many times they were approached by men asking them to dance… each arm accounted for 10 per cent of the body, each leg for 15 per cent and the torso for 50 per cent.

Also of note: Women who not only bared 40% of their skin, but also dressed in tight clothing and danced “provocatively” attracted the most offers to dance. Wait, what? No fucking way!

Other research articles authored by Hendrie include Evidence to Suggest that Nightclubs Function as Human Sexual Display Grounds, published this year to the astonishment of the biological psychology community. He also wrote the groundbreaking 1998 paper Evidence to Suggest that Self-Medication with Alcohol is Not an Effective Treatment For the Control of Depression.

PHOTO:Listen, Missy!

Maybe Claire Bennet wasn’t just trying to test out her powers when she hurled herself off all those high objects. Maybe she was doing science. A series of four articles published in the latest issue of the Journal of Athletic Training delve deeper into the intricacies of injuries-sustained-while-cheerleading than I would have imagined possible. Among the findings of the 1-year research project involving 9022 astonishingly limber high school and college-aged women? The majority of cheerleading-related injuries are caused by stunts.

In other words, friends, please note for future reference that tumbling, jumping, clapping, doing splits, and dancing aren’t as dangerous as being thrown through the air by someone who then attempts to catch you again.

The study also contained the shocking revelation that the most catastrophic fall-related injuries were sustained while cheerleaders were performing on harder surfaces like grass or wood floors, rather than cushier surfaces like spring floors (which are a little like spring mattresses but less sleep-inducing) and foam floors with thick padding. And finally? The higher the fall height, the greater the risk of injury. Color me surprised!

Seriously, though. Cheerleaders, be safe out there. A report that came out last year says the menace is very real. More of you get majorly traumatized, rendered disabled, or even killed (!) by cheerleading than by any other sport. And not everyone has magical healing powers.

I really should be going to bed right now, because my mom and I are waking up early to go to Seattle for a shopping weekend, but I am just not sleepy. It’s like my brain just turns ON at about 11pm. Oh so nocturnal, am I.

Anyways. The thought reminded me of a university psychology study experience. At the beginning of my intro psychology class at the University of Toronto, we all had to fill out this huge questionnaire. It was to be used by grad students when evaluating potential research subjects, as 3% of our grade was given by participating in them (they’ve since quit that practice, I think). Anyways. I got called for all of mine, instead of choosing to volunteer, as I must have turned up at the tails of some normal distributions for a bunch of traits. They never tell you what’s its about until after the experiment is over, so you don’t mess up their trials. They were fun.

One of the calls went a little something like this:

Psych Grad Student: Hello, is that Anna Gosline?
Me: Why yes, it is.
PGS: I am calling to ask for your participation in a psychology study for my thesis. Are you interested?
Me: Sure, dude.
PGS: Okay, could you come to Sidney Smith Hall Rm XXX at 8am on Wednesday morning?
Me: Urrrrr...do you have anything, like, later? (My earliest class was 10am. I awoke promptly at 9:54)
PGS: 8:15am?
Me: Urrrrr...later?
PGS: 8:30?
Me: Okay, (giving up) whatever. I’ll be there.

So I arrive, bleary eyed, totally uncaffeinated and more than a wee bit grumpy. I was placed in a tiny computer room where I was shown 10 sets of 10 vocabulary words. After each set, I had to recall as many as possible. At the end, I had to try and remember as many as I could from the whole 100. Did I mention the uncaffeinated part?

At the debrief, where they tell you what they were actually studying, as opposed to the sometimes misleading directions they give you at the start, the grad student revealed to me that she was studying how people’s “peak” time of the day changes with age. At which point I immediately recalled that on my questionnaire I had filled out: I am a night owl! My peak time of day is about 2am! I love to stay up late! Getting up before noon is hell!

Essentially, this chic had ripped me out of bed at my weakest moment on purpose to see how badly my memory would suck. Add some constantly dripping water on my forehead and I think you could almost call that torture. 

So says The Vinegar Institute (I was surprised it existed but now it seems so obvious really. The url is: http://www.versatilevinegar.org - Duh!).

See, January is National Clean Up Your Computer Month (again, who knew. But yes, such a month does exist). And what better ordinary ingredient to use to clean up your computer than vinegar. In their eager press release The Vinegar Institute (I don’t think I can ever say that without snickering) quotes the step by step instructions found in the book Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things:

Before you begin cleaning, make sure you have all pieces in the ‘off’ position.
Mix equal parts of white vinegar and water in a bucket.
Dampen a clean cloth in the solution and squeeze out the excess. Avoid spraying directly onto your hardware, as it could cause problems with your circuits.
Begin to wipe all pieces down (computer, keyboard, monitor).
Use cotton swabs to reach into those tight places, like between keys on the keyboard.

Now, I know my keyboard is filthy. Rather, underneath my keyboard is filthy what with a recent coffee spill (see: Laptop 911: how to save your computer from a coffee spill)and office cats who shed all over me and my desk. But I don’t know how I feel about using vinegar to clean my keyboard. Will there be a smell? So in search of the answer I poked around The Vinegar Institute’s website. And I was shocked by my vinegar ignorance.

(Also, I’m mentioning this now so you get ample warning. May, is National Vinegar month - don’t you forget it)

According to the Synovate White Distilled Vinegar Attitude and Usage Study from 2004 and 2005 there are three types of people in the world: Virgins, Visitors and Visionaries.

Virgins are the 33 million people who haven’t bought or used white distilled vinegar in the past year. Next we’ve got the Visitors, who make up the vast majority of Americans. Visitors are those who have purchased white distilled vinegar a maximum of two times a year and they’re “open to experimenting with various uses” once they hear about them. Now the Visionaries are real special. There are only 31 million of them in the US. These enlightened folks purchase white distilled vinegar three or more times a year and take it off the shelf monthly. They know to use vinegar to clean kitchen surfaces exposed to raw meat, clean house, get rid of unwanted grass (?), remove glass water rings on wood furniture (hello! I need to try this!! Apparently you rub the stain with equal parts white vinegar and olive oil which strangely sounds like a salad dressing… hmph), and get rid of funky smells. In addition to their varied employment of vinegar the true hallmark of a Visionary is that they “may even create their own new uses.” Whoa boy.

If this is all a big-time epiphany for you may I recommend the site’s ”Uses & Tips“ page.

(PHOTO: Walter Groesel)
Check out this story about a study on the predicted and then actual emotional distress suffered from relationship break-up published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The authors conclude that people are far more scared of the heart ache, and estimate it will be cataclysmic, but after following 69 people for about a year, they found that the break up was never as bad as they expected. Nice.

Only caveat being: these were UNIVERSITY FRESHMEN. Are you kidding? I mean seriously. Of course they think it’s going to be horrible - they are melodramatic teenagers living without parents and in close quarters to the opposite sex and mucho beer for the first time in their lives. And of course they aren’t really that upset because they probably started seeing someone else in like 12 minutes.

Undergrads are the bread and butter of psych research, and most times that’s okay. But come on. You want to generalize about relationship behavior from people who think making out at a kegger on a puke-stained sofa is the start of something beautiful?

This is a very short post to say that I’ve found the best icons ever. See?

For all those science geeks out there who miss the days of staring at beating cilia in high school bio labs, this is for you: Single Celled Icons from Icon Icon available for both Mac and PC. You’ve got your choice of amoeba (nine types) and paramecium type (another nine of these) critters.

For directions on how to welcome these beasts into your life and change your icons, check out these great instructions from Apple.