15 July 2010: Morning By The Morning News — 15 Jul 2010 Analysis of chatter suggests Middle East indirect talks are not going well. Instapaper: What "sanctions against Iraq" really meant on the ground. Fighting Russia's heatwave with vodka and swimming, 233 people drowned in Moscow last week. Distrust numbers in the news; even rigorous-seeming statistics conceal squishy measurements. Google ranks Pakistan no. 1 in sex-related searches. Photographs of South American women and their maids dressed in white T-shirts. Inside the international fight to put foreign food on the American table. Oklahoma high school issues warning about dangerous new fad: audio samples that simulate drug effects. Stats on lies told in online dating, plus truths (e.g., 80% of self-identified bisexuals only interested in one gender). Happiness and sadness are both contagious--but sadness has more social influence. Scientists unsure how long it takes people to overcome long-term sleep debt. Eighteenth-century ship found at World Trade Center site. Chalet-inspired lodging takes first place in competition to design hotels for insects. See also: Japan's love hotels. Resilience theory: the ability of a system to withstand environmental flux without collapsing. Mike Tyson: "I wouldn't be a prostitute in some of the places my wife and I have slept." Circumstances when whipping it should be considered. Jeffrey Eugenides and his editor discuss how the next novel's coming along.
