Some experimental evidence to suggest that swearing makes pain less traumatic, though the mechanism by which is does this shit is unclear: The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their

U. WILL. POKE. ME. FOR. THE. LAST. TIME! nd u will nivver speak 2 me liek dat again. Picture by: Leslie Vernon. Caption by: zehrab via Our LOL Builder » Recaption This » See All Captions

Here's a superior group of young Indian gamers recreating Super Mario onstage for an installment of the reality TV show "India's Got Talent." India's got talent- Mario game ( Thanks, Kvaid ! )

Don’t mind me, the baby’s in my litter tray. She thinks it’s a sandpit, bless her… babeh iz even drinkin awt of mah water bowl. Picture by: dunno source. Caption by: chriswiththebat via Advanced Lol Builder » Recaption This » See All Captions

As the spouse of a former competitive Quake champ, I laughed pretty goddamned hard at this video about life with "First Person Shooter Disease." Living with First-Person Shooter Disease ( via Scalzi )

Edinburgh psych researcher Richard Wiseman and team left a load of wallets lying around with various contents, trying to see if there was a correlation between, say, baby pictures or cards indicating charitable giving and the rate at which wallets are returned. It turns out that people in Edinburgh (and maybe everyone)

Ross sez, "A high-placed insider (ex VP of PR at Cigna) describes the machinations the insurance industry has used to keep us from getting a decent health care system." This guy literally wrote the talking-points memo that the anti-universal-health-care crowd uses. He had a conversion experience and has now come clean. Remarkable

The French "Three Strikes" law is back on -- a law that can punish you for being accused of copyright infringement by cutting off your internet connection, fining you, and putting you in prison. It also criminalizes offering free internet access because pirates might use it. Ed Felten nailed it: this is like a law that lets publishers take away

Alex from WorldChanging sez, We've just released our 2009 "Attention Philanthropy" grants, our effort to shine a light on awesome work that's undeservedly obscure. 100 nominators from around the world helped us find amazing projects in fields as diverse as human rights, urban planning, citizen media and renewable energy