Survival of the Sexiest

In the spring of 1978, a professor at Florida State University gave the students in his seminar on experimental social psychology an unusual assignment. For the next few weeks, they were to approach undergraduates of the opposite sex and compliment them: “I’ve been noticing you around campus lately and find you very attractive.” Then they would ask one of the following questions:

(a) “Would you go out with me tonight?”
(b) “Would you come over to my apartment tonight?”
(c) “Would you go to bed with me tonight?

-The Nation

The Man Who Dissolved His Wife

On Diversey and Hermitage Avenue in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood is an industrial building that was converted to condominiums in the 1990s. Though this building is nondescript today, it was the site of a grisly murder at the end of the 19th century.

-Atlas Obscura

Everything: You're Doing It Wrong

Are you having a good day? Are you feeling rested, and happy, and ready to conquer the week ahead with your signature mixture of aggression and aplomb? Are you on top of your game, and thus on top of the world? Then you might want to get off the Internet. Because the Internet does not agree with your sparkly sense of optimism.

-The Atlantic

The Sand Dunes of Maspalomas

The Dunes of Maspalomas is a spectacular 4 square km field of sand located in the tourist town of Maspalomas in the south of the island of Gran Canaria of Canary Islands. The sand originated from coral reefs crushed into fine golden grains of limestone by the grinding action of glaciers over thousands of years ago.


-Amusing Planet

Restaurant backs off event featuring Death Row inmate's last meals

A pop-up restaurant event was going to feature the last meals eaten by Death Row inmates, the Telegraph reports. The organizers canceled after facing intense backlash on social media.


-SF Gate

An Investigation into the Weirdest Ronald Reagan Photo You’ve Probably Never Seen

I read and re-read many books in my adolescence. The Wanderers, for the sex; The White Hotel, also for the sex; and To Kill A Mockingbird, for the lyricism. Well-thumbed, too, was an anthology of essays, reported stories, interviews and cartoons from The Realist, a funny, scathing counter-culture magazine founded in 1958, by Paul Krassner. I didn't understand a lot of it; the "impolite" interview with Dick Gregory; the parody of William Manchester's biography on the John F. Kennedy assassination, in which LBJ has his way with Kennedy's corpse; the famously dirty Disney cartoon—but I knew, even in my ignorance, that it was funny.

-The Awl

JFA was formed in April 1981, 19 days after the failed attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr. Hinckley, an obsessed fan of Jodie Foster and her portrayal of a teen prostitute in the 1976 Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver, reportedly attempted to kill the President as a means of impressing the actress. The band's name was thus a dark play on Hinckley's attempt at murdering Reagan — a hated figure in the early 1980s punk rock scene.

Your “weird” turn-ons aren’t as strange as you think

I figuratively rubbed my hands together when I saw that Jezebel was soliciting readers’ “weirdest turn ons.” Snarky, no-shit-taking feminists revealing their deepest darkest fantasies! This should be awesome, I thought. So far, the submissions include quirky things like fake German accents, priest collars, fresh tobacco, alcoholic comedians and “hyperarticulate political shop talk.” One woman copped to really liking her boyfriend’s hands. Another admitted to rape fantasies — dun, dun, dun — after tremendous encouragement from fellow commenters.


-Salon

Pierre Folk Photographs La Petite Ceinture

La Petite Ceinture (known as the Little Belt in English) is a relic of a bygone era. Built in the 1850s and ’60s, it runs nearly 20 miles around the City of Light along the Boulevards des Maréchaux. It carried passengers until 1934, when automobiles and the underground metro system supplanted it as preferred modes of transport.

-Slate

Intimate Portraits of Bees

Researchers take advantage of photography technology developed by the U.S. Army to capture beautiful portraits of bees native to North America.


-National Geographic

Exotic Taxidermied Creatures Land Their Creator in Jail

In Enrique Gomez De Molina’s hands, animals become chimeras—multiple animals blended into one fantasy, nightmare creature. His taxidermied beasts are at once weird and wonderful, absorbing and off-putting. “I guess I like to play God, “ he laughs in a Thrillist interview. Two swan heads share a goat’s body. A nasty little crab/rodent sneers at the camera. Bird’s bills and fur, antlers and insects join seamlessly to make creatures that defy nature.


-Beautiful Decay 

Longleat Hedge Maze : The Longest in The World

Longleat Hedge Maze is located in the garden of the English stately home of Longleat, situated adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of Warminster in England. Designed and laid out in 1975, the maze has pathway length of 2.72 kilometers, sprawled out over 1.5 acres, and is made up of 16,000 English yews. It is the world's longest hedge maze.


-Amazing Planet

Lucy Hilmer Has Been Taking Nude Self Portraits On Her Birthday For Over 40 Years

Lucy Hilmer is a photographer who has taken nude self portraits  each year for the last 40 years of her life, on her birthday. She takes the photos wearing only underwear, socks, and shoes. The act of being naked, she says, is in defiance of the prescribed definition of beauty applied to her body. Being a woman with a slim figure and classically appealing features, she found she wanted to define herself through these photographs, rather than accept the definitions of others.


-Beautiful Decay

Why we’ll never stop taking naked photos

One thing brought up by this theft of celebrity nudes is the question of why we take naked photos in the first place. I don’t mean that in the victim-blaming sense of “that’s so dumb, why would you ever take a naked photo because obviously everyone will see it.” Although I do think it’s remarkable that naked photo leaks and thefts have seemingly done little to deter this impulse; clearly, taking naked photos is an important part of many people’s sexuality. We’ve taken, and allowed other people to take, naked photos of ourselves since long before the age of the smartphone or the portentous “cloud.” For as long as photography has existed, so too have nude photographs. But why?

-Salon

We Treasure Ordinary Moments More Than Extraordinary Ones

If your feed is anything like mine, Facebook is a black hole of ostentatious self-promotion, littered with photos from your rich friend’s latest booze-soaked excursion to Vegas. Less prevalent are posts documenting their more mundane moments—an idle conversation at a coffee shop, an errand during lunch. They may want to rethink their strategy: New research shows boring memories are actually more satisfying to relive.

-Vice