"Do mosquitoes prefer certain blood types?"

The short answer is "yes". Or as the article notes, "[I]f you're a type O secretor, to a mosquito you look like caramel-covered crack..."

"Venn diagram of mythical creatures".

(Via Kottke, who notes: "My favorite is dog + dog + dog = Cerberus".)

"The 15 Biggest Wikipedia Blunders"

The eBook war is heating up.

"Wacky copy protection methods from the good old days"

"New Type of Disappearing Ink: Nanoparticle inks that fade away in hours could be ideal for secure communications"

Admin note: Posting may be sporadic this upcoming week due to external obligations.

"Crazy-Powerful IBM Microscope Takes First 3D Image of Molecular Atomic Bonds"

"Holographic GPU renders at near real-time speeds"

"What's Inside a Slim Jim?"

Seriously unhappy cable customer. Read the whole thing.

"Entangled Light, Quantum Money"

Invention of the day: Racheting Hex Wrench.

Video of couple having sex in MRI scanner.

You may have already seen the still MRI images.

"How Colors May Affect Your Productivity and Success". (Via DRB.)

"Most pilots would head away from a thermonuclear explosion..." (Via SciTechDaily.)

BlindSearch is a search engine taste test:

Type in a search query, hit "search", then vote for the column which you believe best matches your query. The columns are randomised with every query.

The goal of this site is simple, we want to see what happens when you remove the branding from search engines. How differently will you perceive the results?

(Via BBspot.)

The USAF is training more UAV pilots than real pilots. (Via Michael Williams.)

Hidden rooms.

Coin flipping is less random than commonly believed:

1. If the coin is tossed and caught, it has about a 51% chance of landing on the same face it was launched. (If it starts out as heads, there's a 51% chance it will end as heads).

2. If the coin is spun, rather than tossed, it can have a much-larger-than-50% chance of ending with the heavier side down. Spun coins can exhibit "huge bias" (some spun coins will fall tails-up 80% of the time).

3. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor, this probably adds randomness.

4. If the coin is tossed and allowed to clatter to the floor where it spins, as will sometimes happen, the above spinning bias probably comes into play.

5. A coin will land on its edge around 1 in 6000 throws, creating a flipistic singularity.

6. The same initial coin-flipping conditions produce the same coin flip result. That is, there's a certain amount of determinism to the coin flip.

7. A more robust coin toss (more revolutions) decreases the bias.

Here are the strategy implications:

1. Always be the chooser, if possible. This allows you to leverage Premise 1 or Premise 2 for those extra percentage points.

2. Always be the tosser, if you can. This protects you from virtuoso coin-flippers who are able to leverage Premise 6 to produce a desired outcome. It also protects you against the added randomness (read: fairness) introduced by flippers who will occasionally, without rhyme or reason, invert the coin in their palm before revealing. Tricksy Hobbitses.

3. Don't allow the same person to both toss and choose. Unless, of course, that person is you.

4. If the coin is being tossed, and you're the chooser, always choose the side that's initially face down. According to Premise 1, you'd always choose the side that's initially face up, but most people, upon flipping a coin, will invert it into their other palm before revealing. Hence, you choose the opposite side, but you get the same 1% advantage. Of course, if you happen to know that a particular flipper doesn't do this, use your better judgment.

5. If you are the tosser but not the chooser, sometimes invert the coin into your other palm after catching, and sometimes don't. This protects you against people who follow Rule 4 blindly by assuming you'll either invert the coin or you won't.

6. If the coin is being spun rather than tossed, always choose whichever side is lightest. On a typical coin, the "Heads" side of the coin will have more "stuff" engraved on it, causing Tails to show up more frequently than it should. Choosing Tails in this situation is usually the power play.

7. Never under any circumstances agree to a coin spin if you're not the chooser. This opens you up to a devastating attack if your opponent is aware of Premise 2.

Here's the academic paper. (Via Bruce Schneier.)