New Gelman

GW’s Gelman Library has launched a new site. It looks cleaner and much more organized. I wish it features a list of new books on the homepage just like a new section it has in the library.

Penis on Fire

A jealous wife, Rajini Narayan, set her husband’s penis on fire and accidentally burnt down the house. This is one of the reasons not to cheat.

Première Heure

French photographer Thierry Bouët captures the freakishness of newborn babies in his latest series. The photos were taken within the first few hours after the babies come out of the womb. I love this guy.

Songsmith

Microsoft Research introduces Songsmith, a program that would create the arrangement for your singing. All you have to do is sing your heart out into the microphone and let Songsmith worries about the music production. The demo video looks pretty cool.

Baby Food

New Yorker has a great piece from Jill Lepore on breast-feeding. The history of breast-pumping is also very informative. Read it if you’re about to become a parent like me. Here is an excerpt:

In 1997, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement on “Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk,” declaring human milk to be “species-specific” and recommending it as the exclusive food for the first six months of a baby’s life, to be followed by a mixed diet of solid foods and human milk until at least the end of the first year. In that statement, and in a subsequent revision, the A.A.P. cited research linking breast-feeding to the reduced incidence and severity of, among other things, bacterial meningitis, diarrhea, respiratory-tract infection, ear infection, urinary-tract infection, sudden-infant-death syndrome, diabetes mellitus, lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, obesity, and asthma. The benefits of breast-feeding are unrivalled; breast-feeding rates in the United States are low; the combination makes for a public-health dilemma.