rebecca's pocket

» Rats fed unlimited amounts of junk food exhibit the same behaviors as herion addicts, a new study shows. After just five days on the junk food diet, rats ate twice as many calories as rats in the control group, showed a reduction in their pleasure centers, and were willing to undergo electric shocks while they ate. Returned to a healthy diet, the rats refused to eat for two weeks.  [ 11.02.09 ]

» Jaw dropping.

As [Kaiser Permanente CEO George ] Halvorson explained, and academics and consultancies have repeatedly confirmed, if you leave everything else the same -- the volume of procedures, the days we spend in the hospital, the number of surgeries we need -- but plug in the prices Canadians pay, our health-care spending falls by about 50 percent.

Click through if only to see all the charts. (via rc3)  [ 11.03.09 ]

» So when is Twitter going to remove the 140 character limit from posts? At this point it's just vestigial, isn't it?  [ 11.04.09 ]

» From the American Bookseller's Association, 10 years of indie recommendations for November reading. (via ra)  [ 11.04.09 ]

» If you haven't already seen them, don't miss this amazing series of pictures of the flooding in Venice last December. (via @ebertchigago)  [ 11.05.09 ]

» How does jello work? (via se)  [ 11.06.09 ]

» The Empire State Building green initiative includes no solar panels and no green roof. Instead, building managers plan to reduce annual energy use by nearly 40 percent using low-tech methods such as improved insulation, and adding a coated film between the glass in window panes.  [ 11.10.09 ]

» Wow! Research Librarian Camille Cloutier has created a custom Google search for recipes, using her favorite recipe sources and aggregators. I've done a few searches, and the results are very promising. (via her recipe aggregators recommendations for Cool Tools)  [ 11.11.09 ]

» Wisdom: the "work-to-glory ratio" and "product-plus-process" aspect of knitting. This applies equally to any of the hand crafts, including cooking.  [ 11.12.09 ]

» Harriet Evans on the critics' reception and perception of male vs female writers. In short:

[B]ooks about young women are seen as frivolous and silly, while books about young men's lives that cover the same topics, are reviewed and debated, seen as valid and interesting contributions to the current social and media scene.

(via mamr)  [ 11.13.09 ]

» Can you imagine New York City and Tokyo after the ice caps have melted? Studio Lindfors has, and the images are among the most beautiful you will ever see.  [ 11.16.09 ]

» Athlete Aimee Mullins on, among other things, reality, self-image, and imagination. Don't let the title put you off. This piece is mind-blowing, thought-provoking, and very, very interesting. (thanks, vinylrake!)  [ 11.17.09 ]

» Jacques Pepin cooks a 5-course dinner for 6 - spending $24. No plan, he just buys what looks good and then improvises when he gets home to the kitchen.  [ 11.18.09 ]

» Russell Davies on barely-games and the value (and ubiquity) of pretending. His piece make a nice counterpart, somehow, to the Aimee Mullins piece I linked Tuesday. (via waxy)  [ 11.19.09 ]