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If you use Eudora for email, an upgrade to ver. 5 will get you MoodWatch ‘Research has shown that “people behaved irresponsibly more often in email

than they did in face to face conversations.” But you already knew that, right? MoodWatch won’t stop you from acting irresponsibly in email, it will just let you

know when you might be about to send a message you’ll regret.’ [via Memepool]

Olympics: We Know the Winners. Now, Let the Games Begin.

“In a

study released on Aug. 28, Andrew Bernard, of the Tuck

School of Business at Dartmouth College, and Meghan R.

Busse, of the Yale School of Management, examined Summer

Olympics medal counts for the last 40 years to see what

factors determine how many medals each nation wins…. Like so many paradigm-shifting breakthroughs, the formula

discovered by Mr. Bernard and Ms. Busse is beautiful in its

simplicity.

Just two factors account for 95 percent of a nation’s

predicted medal count: the number of medals it won at a

previous Olympics, and the overall size of its economy.” New York Times

Scientists try to foresee marriage breakdowns: “A pair of university researchers announced Monday that they can scientifically and mathematically predict

how likely and how soon a newly married couple will untie the knot…The complicated mathematical formula includes numbers of thoughts of divorce, amount of perspiration

measured by skin conductivity levels, humor during the discussion, marriage length, amount of anger and

something called ‘facial action units’ — or frowns, smiles and grimaces caught on tape.” St. Louis Post

Unborn child ‘can detect language’, child psychologists find. http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Study: Addiction possible after few cigarettes. “Scientists have

confirmed a suspicion held by some

smokers but never proven: It could

take just a few cigarettes to become

addicted. Some 12- and 13-year-olds

showed evidence of addiction within

days of their first cigarette, according

to research reported this week in the

British Medical Association journal

Tobacco Control.” Chicago Tribune

Cultivate excitement, fight boredom, improve self-esteem, duck blame, simplify complications, act out childhood frustrations, facilitate affiliation and social cohesion: find an enemy now! Observer

Scenes from the Apocalypse: Fuel Protests Spread Across Europe, Pumps Run Dry Reuters

Finally, one of life’s most ticklish questions answered. New Scientist

‘Che’ Photographer in Anti-Commercial Fight: ‘When I saw this, I felt indignant because it’s a lack of respect. Even though it has been

used in hundreds of things, T- shirts, flags … they had never linked his image with an

alcoholic drink,” he said, calling Guevara “the greatest person in history after Jesus Christ.” ‘ Reuters

It’s in the air: The debate over whether pheromones influence our behaviour has been fired up by the discovery of what may be a

working gene for a pheromone receptor.

While pheromones are common in insects and lower mammals, which use them for everything from attracting mates

to marking trails, whether such chemical signals affect humans has long been contentious. New Scientist