Men and women can never be friends - but sex has nothing to do with it

Can men and women ever be just friends? It is the eternal question that When Harry Met Sally  set out to answer in 1989, and endless romcoms have continued to debate in the decades since (Friends with Benefits, 13 Going on 30 and so on). Now a new study has shed light on the age-old question, but instead of focusing on the "sex part” that Billy Crystal’s Harry was so preoccupied by, it looks at what I’ve always suspected to be the real problem between the genders: how they define friendship.

-The Telegraph

Medieval Europe Couldn't Quit This Story About a Woman Eating Her Lover's Heart - Her husband tricks her into eating it

Some stories are so good that they’re told over and over again, morphing in their details but staying the same in their essence. In Europe’s High Middle Ages, one of the most persistent stories was a gruesome tale of love and cannibalism, the Legend of the Eaten Heart. For years, starting in the 1800s, scholars tried to sort through the story’s many versions to puzzle out where it had originated, but there was a difficulty—one Indian version of the exact same story that had to be somehow factored in.

-Atlas Obscura

4 Things You Can Do to Cheer Up, According to Neuroscience

For everyone, there are times when a dark cloud just seems to be following you around. You may not even even know why. While we don’t mean to minimize the value of medication for those who experience this on a daily basis, UCLA neuroscientist Alex Korb, author of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time, has some insights that might just get you back on the sunny side. It’s all got to do with neuroscience.

-Big Think

You’ll soon be able to climb a wall of genitals

Ever fancied pulling yourself up a wall by firmly gripping a purple penis? ‘Course you have. Haven’t we all? Now, finally, this extremely common (right?) dream can become reality.

-Metro

Two Lovers, Two Doses of MDMA - What if a drug can help teach us to care for each other?

Twenty years into her first marriage, Friederike Meckel Fischer fell in love with another man. The affair was so tumultuous, so devastating, that after it was over she went in search of help. The help she found came from a surprising source — a branch of therapy that uses altered states of consciousness, sometimes aided by psychedelic drugs, to probe and to heal. Being a therapist herself, it wasn’t long before Meckel began using the drugs with her own clients — when she trusted their confidence and thought they might see benefits, like she did.

Her practice grew until she and her second husband were regularly hosting weekend-long group sessions with clients at their home in Switzerland. They used MDMA, LSD, and sometimes other substances in a carefully tailored program.

-Inverse

Queens of the Stoned Age

There are a thousand ways to buy weed in New York City, but the Green Angels devised a novel strategy for standing out: They hired models to be their dealers. In the eight years since the group was founded—by a blonde, blue-eyed Mormon ex-model—they’ve never been busted, and the business has grown into a multimillion-dollar operation. Suketu Mehta spent months embedded with them at their headquarters and out on their delivery routes to see where this great experiment in American entrepreneurship might lead.

-GQ

This Finnish Word Makes Your Sad Weekend Plans Sound a Little Cooler

The Danes have hygge, the sense of coziness that helps propel them to to the top of all those happiness rankings. The Swedes have, um, Ikea. But in the ranking of trendy Scandinavian exports, Finland’s coming in hot: Introducing kalsarikannit, a Finnish term that roughly translates to “drinking home alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out.”

-NY Mag

The Party Castle Forgotten in the Jungle for Half a Century

There are some places in the world that make you weak at the knees with nostalgia and Paronella Castle is one of them.

It was the impossible dream of an ambitious Spanish immigrant who sailed to Australia in 1913 to make a life for himself and his fiancé waiting back home. José Paronella worked for over a decade worlds away from his homeland, first as a labourer cutting sugar cane, and then slowly building his wealth, buying, improving and selling cane farms. In his first years of travelling around Queensland, he discovered a virgin forest land alongside a waterfall and knew at first sight that he would one day call it his home. Over a century later, the ruins of his incredible story remain in the jungle…

-Messy Nessy Chic

Fully Loaded: Inside the Shadowy World of America's 10 Biggest Gunmakers

They are all white, all middle-aged, and all men. A few live openly lavish lifestyles, but the majority fly under the radar. Rarely is there news about them in the mainstream media or even the trade press. Their obscurity would seem unremarkable if we were talking about the biggest manufacturers of auto accessories or heating systems. But these are America's top gunmakers—leaders of the nation's most controversial industry. They have kept their heads down and their fingerprints off regulations designed to protect their businesses—foremost a law that shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their products.

-Mother Jones

5 questions pour comprendre le mystère des armes à feu aux États-Unis

À chaque nouvelle tuerie, la question du contrôle des armes revient dans l'actualité aux États-Unis. À plusieurs reprises, Barack Obama a tenté de mettre en place des mesures pour mieux encadrer leur vente, mais il s'est toujours heurté à l'opposition du puissant lobby des armes à feu. Retour sur la question en graphiques.

-Radio-Canada

The Gun Industry's Lucrative Relationship With Hollywood

BURNISHED BY THE LOW LIGHT OF GLASS-WALLED DISPLAYS, THEY seem like ancient artifacts, but the objects here are beloved contemporary icons. One case houses the massive Smith & Wesson Model 29 wielded by Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" Callahan in the 1973 film Magnum Force. In another rests the Beretta 92F used by Bruce Willis in Die Hard. All the great shoot-'em-up classics — The Bourne Identity, Pulp Fiction, The Wild Bunch — are here. This exhibit, celebrating cinema, isn't in Hollywood; it's thousands of miles away, in a museum at the headquarters of the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Va.

The NRA is proud of its "Hollywood Guns" exhibit. It's the most popular of more than a dozen rooms and multiple showcases, which include the gun that Theodore Roosevelt took on a 1913 expedition to the Amazon. The shiny allure of the Hollywood gun room comes last in the museum tour — "like a reward," says an NRA official.


-The Hollywood Reporter

Worst Album Covers of All Time

Not all album covers are created equal. Some album covers are so incredible that they can’t now be explained by the people who originally conceived of them. Here we look at 30 of the worst, most strange and downright ridiculous album covers ever made. They truly are the worst album covers you’ll ever see. Let’s kick off with the inimitable charms of Quim Barreiros…

-Tastebuds

Why do people persist in beliefs that are wrong – and even harmful?

People often maintain beliefs that can’t be explained away by ignorance. In the face of this, how do we effectively communicate science? Richard Feynman said that the easiest person to fool is yourself. Fooling yourself is a particular danger for the well-educated, who see themselves as smart; and who in all likelihood tend to hang around with like-minded people of similar background and experience. Because you’re smart, your ideas are necessarily good.

-The Guardian

The Type of People Who Are the Best Fit for Nonmonogamous Relationships

In psychology, sociosexuality is how disposed you are to casual, uncommitted sexual relationships. Culture tends to prefer the restricted, buttoned-up variety, while unrestricted sociosexuality leads to slut-shaming for women (and maybe men, too). But, if sociosexuality really does fall along a gradient — you can scroll through the scale here — then maybe more sexually open people don’t fit well into traditional definitions of relationships?

-NY Mag

Dans la tête des amants

Pourquoi quelqu'un accepte-t-il d'être l'amant d'une personne en couple? Que vont chercher ces gens? Ont-ils des remords? Une psychologue, une maîtresse et un amant nous donnent leur opinion.

-La Presse

1,500 PEOPLE GIVE ALL THE RELATIONSHIP ADVICE YOU’LL EVER NEED

Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this — ask for advice, I mean, not shit the same bed — especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for. But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further. See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? 

-Mark Manson.net

Sleeping with the Marquis de Sade

Whilst exploring Provence last summer, I found myself in the small town of Mazan. Nestled at the foot of Mont Ventoux in the Vaucluse, Mazan is a quaint, medieval town, enclosed by a circular wall dating back to the 14th century. Set into the ancient wall are old portes, leading to narrow alleyways, hidden fountains and old homes. One particular hidden roadway led to a beautiful 18th century chateau and its remarkable history. For this elegant home, tucked away behind a medieval wall is the old family home of the Marquis de Sade. It also provides a rare opportunity to lay your head in the same place as France’s most infamous libertine, because the Chateau de Mazan recently became a luxurious hotel.

-Messy Nessy Chic

George Plimpton and Papa in Cuba

When Ernest Hemingway agreed to his famous Paris Review interview, he had no idea he’d be helping the CIA.

-Guernica

DOOMSDAY PREP FOR THE SUPER-RICH

Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.

-The New Yorker