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From the expert:

“It will be just like letting a bomb go off,” said Dr Felix Lockman from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

The shockwaves will set off a tremendous burst of star formation. These stars will be massive, rushing through their lives quickly and exploding as supernova.

The monster cosmic “fog bank” is careering towards our galaxy at more than 240km/s (150 miles/s) and is set to strike the Milky Way at an angle of 45 degrees.

Given the death cloud’s current cosmic velocity it is set to impact the outer edges of the Milky Way in 20 to 40 millions years.

I have started preparing today by stockpiling bottled water and duct tape. I suggest you do the same.

link | BBC News

“We found that an appetitive stimulus not only affects behavior in a specific behavior domain, but also induces a shared state that propels a consumer to choose smaller–sooner options in unrelated domains,” explains researcher Xiuping Li (National University of Singapore). “Similarly, the presence of an attractive woman in the trading room might propel an investor to choose the investment option providing smaller but sooner rewards.”

In the first experiment, Li asked participants to act as “photo editors of a magazine” and choose among either appetite stimulating pictures of food or non-appetite stimulating pictures of nature. A control group was shown no pictures at all. All were then asked to participate in a lottery that would either pay them less money sooner or more money later.

Those who had been exposed to the photos of food were almost twenty percentage points more likely to choose the lottery with the chance of a smaller, more immediate payoff than those who were exposed to the photos of nature (61 percent vs. 41.5 percent) and eleven percentage points more likely to choose the short-term gain than those who had not been exposed to any stimulus (61 percent vs. 50 percent).

Similarly, another experiment used a cookie-scented candle to further gauge whether appetitive stimulus affects consumer behavior. Female study participants in a room with a hidden chocolate-chip cookie scented candle were much more likely to make an unplanned purchase of a new sweater — even when told they were on a tight budget — than those randomly assigned to a room with a hidden unscented candle (67 percent vs. 17 percent).

“The scent of the appetitive stimulus led to reduced happiness with remote gains, which implied that participants in a present-oriented state were less sensitive to future values,” Li explains. “In addition, [this] experiment showed that participants were more likely to satisfy their current and spontaneous desire if they were exposed to the unrelated appetitive stimulus before they made the decision.”

Similarly, my own research has found that a trip to the grocery store while in a hungry state results in a hundred and fifty dollar shopping bill for such extraneous purchases as four varieties of cheese. Next time I find myself in a retail district, I will ensure that I satisfy my gastronomical desires before browsing the coat selection.

Also bringing breakfast to a sales meeting results in higher conversion rates.

I would like to know where those researches got their hands on cookie scented candles.

“This proposal looks in order and your terms seem reasonable…do I smell chocolate chip cookies?”

“Cookies?! Uh, nope – no cookies here.”

Article Link: Aroma Of Chocolate Chip Cookies Prompts Splurging On Expensive Sweaters

(Via boingboing.net.)

From Metro.co.uk:

The 1.8m-wide (6ft) creature is so attached to Mr Potato Head that he turns aggressive when aquarium staff try to remove it from his tank.

‘He’s fascinated by it,’ said Matt Slater, of the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall. ‘He attacks the net we use to fish the toy out every time we try to take it away.’

Mr Slater added: ‘Octopuses are very intelligent and they like to be stimulated and busy.’

Have a look at the related articles on this site.

such as:

“Hermaphrodite pony finds friendship with donkey”

The octopus who loves his Mr Potato Head | Metro.co.uk

"Dreams, (Revnonso) contends, are a training ground in which animals and people
alike go over the behaviors that are key to their survival.

...Revonsuo believes that dreams are a sort of nighttime theater in which
our brains screen realistic scenarios. This virtual reality simulates
emergency situations and provides an arena for safe training. As
Revonsuo puts it, ‘The primary function of negative dreams is rehearsal
for similar real events, so that threat recognition and avoidance
happens faster and more automatically in comparable real situations.’"

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"Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing
to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western
Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe’s standard of living
is higher by any reasonable criterion, including…"

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