“I have never wished there was a God to call on—I have often wished there was a God to thank.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, notebook entry, The Crack-Up ... read more

“You have no idea how exciting it was in those days to be eighteen and to be meditating, writing for the first time there is really no fear. . ..”

Artificial ’embryos’ created in the lab to replace deaths caused by chemical wars BBC

Mosul chemical attack ((Source Unknown)

Kim Jong-nam killing: North Korea Chemical Attack (Source Unknown) ambassador expelled

North Korea uses sophisticated tools to spy on citizens digitally – report Reuters

Earth Probably Began With A Solid Brainless Shell Achaeology News Network

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking Quiet, Please Harvard Magazine

New Science of team chemistry: "IF YOU UNDERSTAND HOW THE BRAIN WORKS, YOU CAN REACH ANYONE"

The Neuroscience of Trust: CAN NEUROSCIENCE HELP US UNDERSTAND TRUST AT WORK?: INTERACTION

How Playboy Magazine Played A Key Role In The Vietnam War

Turns out soldiers really did read it for the articles. (Well, not only the articles.) “In fact, it’s hard to overstate how profound a role Playboy played among the millions of American soldiers and civilians stationed in Vietnam throughout the war: as entertainment, yes, but more important as news and, through its extensive letters section, as a sounding board and confessional.”

The Trick Smoothies Play on the Stomach

Strategic blending can delay hunger

Local and international buyers vie for prized Aboriginal art

The bohemian joke: Stalin and Roosevelt had an argument about whose bodyguards were more loyal and ordered them to jump out of the window on the fifteenth floor. Roosevelt’s bodyguard flatly refused to jump, saying, “I’m thinking about the future of my family.” Stalin’s bodyguard, however, jumped out of the window and fell to his death. Roosevelt was taken aback.
“Tell me, why did your man do that?” he asked.
Stalin lit his pipe and replied: “He was thinking about the future of his family, too.”

There is now a signaling theory of lullabies

What Studies Teach Us About Why People Ignore Incontrovertible Facts

“People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of my toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate, Sloman and Fernbach argue, that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others’ begins.”

Spain appoints SEX TSAR to encourage couples to have more nookie to boost country’s ‘catastrophically’ low birth rate
ArtNews: “The world-famous Sistine Chapel—which greets as many as 25,000 visitors per day, their necks craned toward the ceiling—can now be looked at in even greater detail, after being documented with the newest technology in art photography

A Saint for Difficult People

From bohemian to radical to Catholic activist, Dorothy Day devoted her life to the poor, however unlovable

Superbug infections rising rapidly and spreading silently in kids ars technica

We’re running out of treatment options for 12 ‘priority pathogens’ Reuters

David French at National Review, “one of the most important reads of the new year.”

Australia kangaroo fact of the day.

Should cow urine be worth more than cow milk?

Photo: Pollen-speckled honeybee considers the flower TreeHugger

Wherever an altar is found, there civilization exists

— Joseph de Maistre, who died on this date in 1821
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Cézanne, who grew up in a mountainous region, was a master of line. Turner, from London, was expert in mist and fog. Does geology dictate art?... Tatranka Folkloric Subor Dancing'
Andy Warhol, dead 30 years, anticipated our times. He celebrated commercialism, celebrity, and had an opinion of Donald Trump: "I think Trump's sort of cheap"... Andrej Varhola

“Workers in Sweden could soon be allowed to take paid “sex breaks” during the day – in a bid to improve low birth rates and promote healthy relationships.”