Via io9: ‘Unlike dogs and other animals, humans — for the most part — don’t sniff each other. Well, at least that’s what we thought. A rather unsettling new study from the Weizmann Institute shows that practically all of us sniff our hands after handshaking — a possible sign of social chemosignaling behavior.

The new study, published in the journal eLife, suggests that humans use handshakes to exchange important chemical information — information that can alter our behavior is subtle ways. The researchers came to this conclusion by covertly filming 271 subjects as they they were being greeted in a structured event, some with a handshake and some without.’

Justin P. McBrayer in the New York Times: ‘What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?

I was. As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshman in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.

What I didn’t know was where this attitude came from…’ (via 3quarksdaily)

Via Big Think: ‘Jesse Singal from NYMag reports that the mobile app market is an under-regulated mess. While the health market has boomed with step, heart rate, and various other personal wellness trackers, Singal warns that there’s no regulation, which means an app’s accuracy can vary from developer to developer. This lack of consistency or regulation standards among applications brings questions of reliability for users that may depend on sound readings.’

Via Telegraph: ‘The launch of a new word in China is threatening to break the internet, with the character being shared millions of times despite no-one knowing what it means.

The character, known as “duang”, has appeared more than 8m times on China’s leading social media site Weibo since it emerged a week ago, generating hundreds of thousands of online conversations.

Foreign Policy, the magazine, has now dubbed the character as a “break the internet” viral meme in the same ilk as last year’s image of Kim Kardashian and last week’s multi-coloured dress.

The new character has connections to film star Jackie Chan. A fake advert featuring Chan, who sponsors numerous products in China, appeared on video streaming site Youku for herbal shampoo Bawang, which Chan endorses. At the end of advert, Chan appears to say of the product: “It’s just … it’s just … duang!” ‘