Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 1127

'American Idol': Ten Things I Hate About You

Congratulations, America. You have arrived at base camp two of your ascent to the top of Ryan Seacrest's Magic Mystery Mountain. Only one last big climb to go before you are standing at the top, gasping for air, many of your compatriots lying dead in frozen heaps beneath you. Yes, last night we crowned our Top 10 on American Idol, all of them beaming their telegenic smiles while the gore-soaked crowns dripped on their heads. It had been a long and brutal fight, but here they were. Arrived. Who made it? Who was unceremoniously sent home? Let's take a look.

The Surprises

Uh... Guys. I think Angie Mills maybe just won the whole enchilada last night. Hear me out! Obviously the guys are all, to a man, complete doofuses, so they will not win. And, most shockingly of the evening, pretty pretty Aubrey did not go through. Yes! That was, for me, the biggest surprise of the night. In my head I saw Aubrey sailing through and getting more and more fans and being pretty and singing just fine and ascending the Idol ziggurat to reign supreme as the new Carrie, the new Kelly. I of course realize that was a bit far-fetched; for one the ziggurat is still broken from when Kara DioGuardi threw a stool at it, but also of course nobody watches American Idol anymore so it would be near abouts impossible for anyone on the show to get as famous as Carrie or Kelly. It just ain't gonna happen. But, in a scaled-down sense, I really did see Aubrey doing some major dino damage on this thing and possibly winning the whole damn show. I really did. But now she's not even in the Top 10! Which means my conception of what teenage girls want must be really out of whack. Weird, considering in many ways I am a teenage girl. But anyway! Now I think that Angie Mills is the frontrunner. I mean, don't you? People really seem to like her. She's peppy and young but sings soulfully and she looks a little like Miley Cyrus. That's tough to beat. Sure her hair looks like a double-long version of Nancy McKeon's circa 1985, but that can be changed. It probably will change by next week. It has to change. The hair is really terrible, Angie. Still, I think she's the dog to beat in this funny farm. I've got a feeling. Which probably means she'll be voted out next week.

On the guys side there really weren't any surprises, were there? We all knew Chuck Askew wouldn't survive the American public, and he seemed to know it too. Actually all the guys who didn't make it seemed pretty resigned to their fate, didn't they? Nick Boddington or whatever that behatted fellow's name is was slumped pretty low in his chair after the third or so name was called, as if he knew that his Idol days were basically over. I mean, ol Lorna Doone over there, Lazaro they call him, he hadn't been called yet and of course he was going to go through. So yeah, Nick and company all kinda sat there glumly waiting for the inevitable news. Except they're all such nonentities that nothing really registered for us emotionally. It was just a "Ho hum, OK" and then moving on. Ryan even reacted that way, calling the defeated men out and chopping their heads off and putting them on pikes telling them to wave goodbye. After a few awkward seconds he said "OK, you can file off the stage that way," and pointed to a dark corner and there they went. How awful. Why bother bringing them out like that? Just leave them in that little soundless room, where time will forget them, probably already has forgotten them. Don't make them slouch out onto the brightly lit stage, to see the dudes who are going through beaming and creaming over on the risers of relief. Only then to make them shuffle off into the dark and out the door, where a lawyer waits by a van to hand them airplane tickets and to inform them that Fox and 19 Entertainment own the rights to their images for the next twelve years. It's just mean. It really is.

The No-Duhs

Like I said, most of the guys were total no-duhs. Lorna Doone, duh. Burnell, ah no duh. Curtis Finch, yeah obviously come on. I guess one might say that Devin was something of a surprise? But then you remember that he sang in Spanish which was novel and will get him Spanish-speaking votes (take note, Mitt!), and that there was really no one left in that room better than him, and it begins to make sense. Was Paul Jolley obvious? I think he was. I mean, look at Paul Jolley. He's like if a Volkswagen Jetta was turned into a human by a wish. He is peppy and efficient and a little trendy in a plastic-y way and he's run by rich girls. He's a human Jetta. So it's really no shock that he went through. Plus there's the whole Ryan factor. Oh man was Seacrest a riot of giggles when he read Paul's name. Grinning like the cat that caught the twink-shaped canary. Ryan immediately grabbed onto Paul's shoulder and rubbed and smiled and led him backstage to the stage entrance. From there it was all encouraging whispers and more rubbing. I actually really liked all of the backstage stuff. They should do that more often, it was really interesting. I mean that! Maybe make half the show a backstage peek. I mean, we don't need to watch the guys actually perform this season, do we? But it would be fun to see more of Ryan doing his slow seduction of Paul Jolley, to catch that crucial moment when Ryan says, "Paul why don't you come to my office for a second," and then the door shuts and we hear rattling and then an "Oh my..." Let's have that this season. Please producers?

Because yeah, the real no-duh last night was that the guys stink. Watching the kids perform their victory songs — the victory songs conceit was useless and annoying and should have been cut to make the episode 30 minutes, but oh well — was a real study in contrasts. I mean the girls were just objectively better, weren't they? There is really no two ways about it. The girls are way better singers this season, and I have to assume that's the hand of the producers. There's no way that, in this crucial season of "a girl must win," the complete duddery of the male half of the competition is an accident. No sir, I do not believe that. But it was still somewhat astounding last night. I mean Candice or Kree or whoever else could blast those boys through the wall with but one flimsy note. It's no contest, my friends. The producers may have done their job too well. Of course that remains to be seen. But you heard it here first: Angie Mills is going all the way. (Meaning goodbye Angie Mills really soon, sorry girl.)

In the meantime, we wait and watch. The snowy faraway peak invisible behind the clouds and fog. But it's there. We know it's there. So we must climb. And climb and climb and climb and climb. Through pain, through exhaustion, through hunger and thirst and mortal desperation, we must keep climbing toward that promised Idol summit. And when we are truly weary, when we feel we cannot go on, when our souls feel sick and dying, our hearts cry out for sweet stoppage, we must listen carefully on the wind. If we are still enough and quiet enough and believe enough, we will hear it: Zoanette. There somehow, on the wind, singing us along. Zoanette singing "PRESS ON, MUTHAF-CKAZ! CLIMB THAT BEAUTIFUL PEAK!" And we will heed her. Because she is Zoanette. And she told us to.

The FBI Might Be a Little Too Scared of the Juggalos

If you're wondering why the FBI ever designated Juggalos — the notoriously unhinged fans of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse — as a criminal gang, a newly public set of documents has the answer. Because of news stories, apparently, and because some of their fans committed crimes.

The FBI file, posted at MuckRock.com yesterday afternoon (and spotted by Digg), reads like a 1976 high school principal's report to parents about Ozzy Osbourne — or, better, like a negative review of The Warriors. "The Juggalos are a violent street gang," the background section of one agent's memo reads, "whose membership follow a small niche of the rap scene, known as 'horrorcore.'" Artists like Insane Clown Posse — rappers Shaggy 2 Dope and Guy Fieri-lookalike Violent J — perform "musical horror stories in which murder, rape and suicide are recurrent themes." The description continues:

Insane Clown Posse can't get its music on the radio, but claims to have 1 million devoted fans who call themselves "Juggalos" or "Juggalettes," and sometimes paint their faces to look like wicked clowns. Some continue the dress by carrying small axes, like the cartoon hatchet man associated with the band. …

The juggalos have been charged with discharge of a firearm. Juggalos crimes also include drug sales, drug possession, child endangerment, as well and many other crimes typically seen by gangs and gang members.

It's probably safe to assume that in any population of one million people, there's going to be a bit of drug dealing and the occasional firearm discharge. San Jose, California, has about one million members, and has a lot more crimes than that.

There's not a lot worth reading in the full report, actually. About half of it is redacted, reports from FBI field offices and other law enforcement officials covered with large white boxes. The second half is news articles, like this one from the Seattle Times in 2011. It reports on a self-described "former juggalo" arrested for shooting two people — perhaps the firearm discharge with which "the juggalos have been charged."

MuckRock summarizes the FBI's rationale.

The goals of the investigation were to “examine the structure, scope, and relationships pertaining to the … violent street gang; to identify members and the organization structure of the gang,” and, perhaps most surprisingly, “to identify all illegal activities which may constitute a pattern of racketeering activity.”

Ultimately, the FBI hoped to “develop larger conspiracy investigations and successful conspiracy prosecutions” of even single robberies using the Hobbs Act, a statute frequently used in corruption cases involving public officials and labor unions.

Not sure how that happened given the evidence at hand. A much more alarming depiction of the group comes from Camille Dodero's definitive 2010 Village Voice article, which is worth reading again and again. It depicts that year's Gathering of the Juggalos and features a large group of drunk, stoned young people unbound by social conventions. It depicts a modern version of an old story: young people rebelling against the man.

That being the case, it appears that the FBI was just playing its proper role.

Further study:
For those wishing to learn more about the Juggalos, we recommend the group's foray into scientific study and this list of Juggalo prayers provided by Yahoo Answers.

DOMA Is Unconstitutional, Says Charismatic President Who Signed It into Law

Bill Clinton does most things right. His entire life, the former president's done nothing but succeed tremendously at everything he does. But even Bubba messes up sometimes. In a new Washington Post editorial, Clinton does a very big thing: He admits to being wrong.

Momentum for the gay rights movement has been building momentum for years now, and Clinton just threw his weight behind it. The two-term president does not try to hide the face that he signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law. In fact, his very first sentence reads, "In 1996, I signed the Defense of Marriage Act." Clinton goes on to express what a "different time" it was back then, and how he decided to sign the thing as advisors warned him of "some quite draconian" alternatives. And yet, he remains unabashed when, in the same breath that he mentions the March 27 Supreme Court hearing on the law, asserts, "As the president who signed the act into law, I have come to believe that DOMA is contrary to those principles and, in fact, incompatible with our Constitution."

This is a big deal. No matter which way you want to cut it, for a president to step forward and more or less condemn a law that he signed is a dramatic gesture. Bear in mind, this comes nearly a full year after President Barack Obama said that he thought "same-sex couples should be able to get married." Two presidents! Bundled with the amicus brief that the Obama administration sent to the Supreme Court this week, Clinton's editorial leaves little doubt about what the executive branch, past and present, thinks about DOMA. There's also boatloads of evidence that the legislative branch is more or less on the same page.

But bear in mind the fact that Supreme Court doesn't have to listen to the executive branch. Their job is to decide whether a specific law is unconstitutional or not. This one is, according to Bill Clinton who is not a judge, though he does get legal in his column. ("Because Section 3 of the act defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, same-sex couples who are legally married in nine states and the District of Columbia are denied the benefits of more than a thousand federal statutes and programs available to other married couples.") One thing is undeniable. We have come a long way.

Twitter Reacts to Justin Bieber's Predictably Dramatic Fainting Spell

Have you heard? Justin Bieber fainted backstage in London. And then, depending on your news source, he was rushed to hospital and either admitted or given a bed where he could show off his abs on Instagram. 

It could've been something serious. After Bieber didn't emerge from backstage, Scooter Braun told the crowd, "Justin got very light of breath; the whole show he has been complaining." Bieber had fainted backstage and took a 20-minute break while sipping on some oxygen. Apparently, doctors at this point determined that this was no life-threatening attack, and Bieber, being the champ he is, finished the show at London's massive O2 arena, before heading to the hospital.

Then the Internet flipped out. The Associated Press sent breaking news alerts to people's smartphones. TMZ busted out its biggest headline font. Twitter came up with a new hashtag, #JustinTakeABreak. And Bieber, of course, took off his shirt. At the time of this writing the latest update about his condition comes in the form a tweet:

getting better. thanks for everyone pulling me thru tonight. best fans in the world. figuring out what happened. thanks for the love

— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) March 8, 2013

 And a moody image of Bieber in his hospital bed using what we believe to be Instagram's "Valencia" filter. (See above.) 

But obviously Bieber wasn't the only one with something to say about this little scare. Cue the Beliebers for reactions of all kinds. There are the dramatic reactions:

This can't be happening im almost crying

Iran Stashed Bin Laden's Son-in-Law in Jail, Possibly to Use as a Bargaining Chip

On Thursday morning, we learned that that the United States had successfully captured Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who's also al Qaeda's spokesman. You'll never guess where he's been hiding the past ten years. Abu Ghaith has been kicking it in a horrible Iranian prison. Actually, "kicking it" is probably not the best choice of words.

The exclusive report from NBC News that hit the web on Thursday night paints a pretty grim picture of the terrorist's jail stay. The network's Robert Windrem reports that bin Laden shipped al Qaeda leadership all over the world in the days and weeks following 9/11. Abu Ghaith was in the unlucky group that had to bribe their way into Iran. That didn't go so well, and Iranian authorities reported arrested hundreds of Abu Ghaith's cohort, including family members. One source says that Abu Ghaith was kept in "the blackest of black boxes." So why not just kill him or offer him to a bounty hunter or something? Explains Windrem: "Many in U.S. intelligence believed Iran held onto them for use as bargaining chips and not just with the U.S. They were in effect hostages." Where have we heard this sort of story before…

It's unclear how Abu Ghaith made his way to Turkey, where he was captured, but the big takeaway from this revelation is that Iran's been hiding terrorists in its prisons. Which ones and how man, we don't know. At least, the story backs up Attorney General Eric Holder's speech after Abu Ghaith arrived in the U.S. for his trial. Holder said, "There is no corner of the world where you can escape from justice because we will do everything in our power to hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law." Now, cut to clips of college students chanting "USA!" outside the White House. 

Who's Going to Fight the Man Now That Carl Levin's Leaving the Senate?

Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, announced his retirement from the Senate on Thursday evening. Until 2014, he'll work hard as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, but after that, it's time to relax. Levin will leave some pretty big shoes to fill, too.

Levin's earned it. As the longest serving senator in Michigan history, the 78-year-old Detroit native has been in the Senate for 35 years now. Not only did he guide our military through September 11 and the two wars that followed, Levin also marched to the front lines of the financial crisis and took a keen interest in bringing down crooked corporations and the reckless executives that run them as chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In the past couple of decades, Levin's been responsible for exposing the wrongdoings of naughty leaders of every company from Enron to Goldman Sachs.

You probably remember his name from the report he co-authored with Sen. Tom Coburn almost two years ago, "Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse" (PDF), and the panel that followed. In that 650-page report, Levin and Coburn pointed fingers not only specific companies like Washington Mutual but also at specific executives like WaMu's former CEO Larry Killinger. And Levin wasn't bashful about his intentions in publishing a phonebook — or at least something the size of a phonebook — full of financial crisis villains. He told The New York Times, "The report pulls back the curtain on shoddy, risky, deceptive practices on the part of a lot of major financial institutions."

So who's going to be pulling back those curtains now, casting light into the dark corners of corporate America? Well we have to see who takes Levin's seat first. Democrats are confident they'll be able to find a candidate, and it helps a little that Levin was popular in his district. Republicans have been working on a list of names since last year when speculation that Levin was almost done started to circulate. As for who's going to do the dirty work in the Investigations Subcommittee, Tom Coburn, a Republican, was a good partner but as an ex officio member, generally wouldn't vote. But out of the remaining names, there is a heck of a frontrunner. 

We'll give you three clues. He shares a name with Ayn Rand. His dad can't stop running for president. And yesterday, he considered wearing a catheter to work. (Spoiler: It's Rand Paul.)

Hulk Won't Be a Lonely Man Again

Today in show business news: Mark Ruffalo says the Hulk won't be going it alone, Jane Fonda has joined an interesting new family, and CBS shuffles its schedule around.

Actor Mark Ruffalo, who took over Hulk duties from Edward Norton in The Avengers, says that we shouldn't hold our breath for another solo Hulk movie. (Don't worry, there will still be plenty of new "hulk solo" movies at your local "men's interest" store.) He tweeted today: "The next time you see my Hulk it will be in the Avengers2. No plans for stand alone." So that's that. And you know what? That's probably fine. We had Ang Lee's version a million years ago and then Edward Norton's, so we don't really need another movie all about the green ghoul. "Bruce Banner struggles with his anger again in Hulk: Still Hulky." There's just not that much there, y'know? So, this is OK. See you in Avengers 2: The Avengening, Hulky. [Entertainment Weekly]

You hear that Jane Fonda is in talks to join the dysfunctional family drama This Is Where I Leave You, based on the acclaimed book, and you think, "Ohh." Then you hear that Tina Fey and Jason Bateman are also part of the cast and you think, "Ohhhh...." And then you see that Shawn Levy is directing the movie and you go, "Oh." Everything else sounds good but then it's like, "The guy who directed Real Steel? And Cheaper By the Dozen? And he's cowriting it??" It all gets less exciting at that point. [Deadline]

Bad news for Vegas fans, good news for Golden Boy fans. So really no news for nobody. The two CBS dramas have been playing a little bit of a schedule showdown, with Golden Boy now taking Vegas's slot on Tuesday nights permanently, though it was only supposed to be temporary. That means Vegas has to move into Golden Boy's intended Friday night slot. Now, Friday night is not the death slot on CBS that it is on other networks. Old people don't go out on weekends, so they're regularly home to watch Blue Bloods and whatever else comes on next. So Vegas could do just fine. Or it could fade and disappear and that would be that. It's just that Golden Boy did better in the Tuesday slot than Vegas was, so CBS said "You earned it, kid." Poor Dennis Quaid. Always getting upstaged by the young upstart. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Speaking of CBS dramas, Hope Davis has been cast on the high-profile, and intriguing, pilot The Ordained. She'll be playing the mayor of New York City who is running for reelection and whose brother (Boardwalk Empire's dreamy Charlie Cox) leaves the priesthood and becomes a lawyer to save his sister from assassination, somehow. I know that sounds silly and soapy, but with those two in the leads maybe it could be good soapy? I mean, Hope Davis wouldn't sign on to a bad show, would she? Other than The Newsroom, that is? And Six Degrees, of course? I don't think she would. [Deadline]

Elizabeth Olsen, moon-goddess sister to the hay-witch Olsen Twins, has signed on to play Juliet in a production of Romeo & Juliet set to go up at New York's Classic Stage Company this fall. The CSC has been really good at attracting interesting celebrities to its tiny East Village theater of late, which is good for them but bad for us, because tickets are always impossible to get. So, we likely won't be seeing you real soon, Ms. Olsen. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Gay Slurs Aren't Protected Speech in Mexico

Mexico's Supreme Court narrowed that country's allowable speech yesterday, determining in a 3-2 vote that two Spanish-language slurs used to disparage homosexuals were not protected under freedom of expression laws.

The blog Blabbeando transcribed a statement released by the court.

[The Court] determined that homophobic expressions or — in other words the frequent allegations that homosexuality is not a valid option but an inferior condition — constitute discriminatory statements even if they are expressed jokingly, since they can be used to encourage, promote and justify intolerance against gays.

For this reason, the Chamber determined that the terms used in this specific case — made up of the words maricones and puñal — were offensive. These are expressions which are certainly deeply rooted in the language of Mexican society but the truth is that the practices of a majority of participants of a society cannot trump violations of basic rights. …

Therefore it was determined that the expressions maricones and puñal, just as they were used in this specific case, were not protected by the Constitution.

The specific case, as Blabbeando summarizes from an article in Milenio, concerned a publisher who attacked a rival using one slur and his employees as the other.

Mexico's articulation of free speech rights differs from America's, clearly. The Washington Post outlined the country's standard in the 2004 case of a poet arrested for disparaging the country's flag:

The Mexican constitution guarantees free speech, as long as that speech doesn't injure someone else, provoke a crime or incite public disturbances. But federal law dating to the 1930s makes it illegal for anyone to insult national symbols, particularly the flag and the national anthem. The laws are vestiges of an era when presidents with vast power controlled the press and placed little importance on individual freedoms.

(It was hoped that the trial of the poet, Serge Witz, might revise those laws; it didn't.)

Yesterday's decision clearly suggests an increase in the importance of individual freedoms. It also suggests the difficult balance required with free speech laws that aren't absolute.

Rand Paul Won, Now What?

Rand Paul declared victory Thursday when his 13-hour filibuster forced Attorney General Eric Holder to answer his question of whether the government can kill by drone an American citizen now engaged in combat on American soil. ("The answer to that question is no," Holder said.) On Fox News, Paul celebrated, literally saying, "Hurray!" John Brennan was confirmed as CIA chief. But Paul's victory is small. His question was quite narrow, a hypothetical about American droning a civilian in Starbucks. But the reason people should be nervous about drones is because of a real thing that is actually happening. Drones ease the expansion of our permanent post-9/11 war into countries that we're not officially at war with. Those countries include Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan.

As MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has explained, the thing that drones use to kill people -- Hellfire missiles -- are not new. (At right is the Air Force unveiling a drone in 1960; at lower left is a drone used in Albania in 1995.) Hellfire missiles are not more deadly when launched by drones than they are when launched by helicopters. What is new is using these war weapons in countries whose governments we are not warring with. We are droning people who aren't shooting at us at the moment we drone them. Paul hinted that he was worried about this. In an interview Thursday with Rush Limbaugh, Paul said the Obama administration's justification for drone strikes holds that "an imminent threat doesn't have to be an immediate threat, and then there are these pictures of people being killed around the world who are not engaged in combat..." But a huge number of Americans support droning people overseas -- 74 percent of the public, according to Fox News, and 80 percent of Republicans. So Paul brought it home again. "I just don't think that standard can be used here at home."

The question of who is an imminent threat -- an enemy combatant -- is an important one. But it's a lessing pressing question at the hypothetical Starbucks in Houston Paul imagine than very real places in North African and the Persian Gulf. The New Yorker's Steve Coll writes that when Obama took office, he dumped George W. Bush's Orwellian "Global War on Terror" for a war against al Qaeda and "associated forces." At this point the core of Al Qaeda could now be as small as less than 100 people hiding in Pakistan. But local groups around the globe have adopted the name, and the White House explains its policies as fighting al Qaeda "franchises." Coll writes:

What’s in a name? Of the several wars that Obama inherited, the war against Al Qaeda is the only one that he has not promised to end. The conflict presents a problem of definition: as long as there are bands of violent Islamic radicals anywhere in the world who find it attractive to call themselves Al Qaeda, a formal state of war may exist between Al Qaeda and America. The Hundred Years War could seem a brief skirmish in comparison.

Paul skillfully got the attention of tweeters and Limbaugh with visions of Obama droning Americans with relatives in the Middle East or "people who like to pay in cash, people who have weatherized ammunition, and more than seven days of food." But even in his post-filibuster victory lap, Paul hinted he had concerns with the larger war on terror. "I think there's some debatable things overseas," he said. 

Despite his political skills, you can see Paul struggling to balance what conservative voters want with what the bigger problem with World War Drone. When Paul talked about Anwar al Awlaki, the American killed by drone in Yemen in 2011, he was careful not to sound like a sissy terrorist coddler:

Overseas, my preference with al-Awlaki would be to have a fairly expeditious trial for treason. Not one with multiple appeals. One at the highest court level and then I would do the drone strike after convicting him of treason.

Yes, that makes lots of sense. First a trial in the U.S. criminal justice system that doesn't follow the rules of the U.S. criminal justice system, and then a cool ass-kicking drone. But this is how a Republican senator from Kentucky elected in 2010 has to sell an anti-drone campaign to a guy like Rush Limbaugh. Assert your anti-terrorist bona fides, and then float the idea of drones in the hands of someone even worse than Obama: "I am worried about them doing surveillance without warrants, flying over my farm, watching where I hunt, things like that. Looking at my farmland with the EPA, there's all kinds of potential abuses, but it's not the technology."

Human Brain Cells Make Mice Smarter

Discovered: Human brain cells increase mice's brain power; Google searches can reveal bad drug interactions; you never need to go outside again; bees love caffeine.

Human brain cells increase mice's brain power. When transplanted into mice, glia — the special cells which envelope nerve cells — can enhance the brain function of lowly mice, researchers in Rochester, New York announced today. Previously thought to be mostly janitorial, glia appears to have affected how mice stored memories, which means it may have a more prominent role in the brains of humans, especially in curing those who have neurological illnesses. "Many neuroscientists essentially ignore glia," notes Science News. "[but] it is becoming clear that the [glia cells] — which make up about 90 percent of the brain — are more important than some people believe." [Science News]

Google searches can reveal bad drug interactions. You may have searched the web for interactions between certain drugs — a blood thinner and an antibiotic, say — to make sure that you don't hurt yourself. A team at Stanford University says if you aggregate a bunch of people's search terms — in the same manner Google tracks the spread of the flu — you can figure out which drugs adversely interact with each other. As a test, the team studied the search data of people taking two different drugs, looking for terms related to illness. "There was a clear spike in searches combining the symptoms" — "together with both drug names, over and above the signal for either drug searched alone." [New Scientist]

You never need to go outside again. You don't really need to prove that going for a walk in the woods tends to be relaxing. But now you might not even have to step outside to gain any of nature's relaxing effects. A Japanese immunologist found that simply the smell of trees and other flora can induce the human body to release stress-decreasing hormones. For now it's unclear whether the effect is causal or correlative. Memories of scent are incredibly powerful, so the smell of a tree could be conjuring a pleasant memory rather than chemically altering the human body. But the notion is attractive for office-dwellers who love getting outside but rarely have the time to wander among the trees. [The Atlantic Cities]

Bees love caffeine. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a tired person wants caffeine. (That, or to go to bed.) English bee researchers have discovered this overarching principle applies to honeybees, too. The researchers found that bees, like humans, get a cognitive kick from the stimulant, after the researchers dosed the nectar of plants that the bees under study were pollinating. While the effect on bees may seem kind of obvious — who doesn't love caffeine? — the study also shows that the brain chemistry of all species, both high and low on the food chain, may be more similar than dissimilar, at least in terms of how our brains — or a bee's — process rewards. Like caffeine. [The New York Times]