Headlines from August 4, 2010

Modern youth's so-called "narcissism epidemic" is an overreaction to pseudoscience.
Why not keep aging it until it achieves the consistency of room-temperature butter? Is aged beef overrated?
A new bias test accurately predicts relationship length--try it here.
Iranian religious leader declares music "not compatible" with Islamic values.
How Ken Starr swindled $59 million out of clients ranging from Annie Leibovitz to Walter Cronkite.
Alexander the Great may have died from river water, not firewater.
From the attic: Maggie Mason's cocktail primer.
From 1946, "So You Want to Go Into the Donut Business?" outlines the latest pastry boom.
Nico Muhly explains the connection between making music and making food.
How the creative director of Wired is re-imagining the magazine industry.
Roger Black just designed your next magazine.
The silence was thick with everyone wishing it were 1977 and I was working for Esquire.
After discovering its oldest man dead, oldest woman missing, Japan now keeps tabs on its elderly.
Why demonstrations of remorse continue to influence criminal sentences.
Merriam-Webster's top 10 lists, including words from the Bible, strange words for body functions.
Iran says it can shop elsewhere if Russia won't deliver its promised missile systems.
Four killed at Israel-Lebanon border; initial U.N. report backs Israel.
Hezbollah claims "extreme restraint"; Israeli source suggests shooting was to shift attention away from Hariri inquiry.
Video shows French police manhandling Ivory Coast protesters and children, adding to immigration debate.
Battle in Rome between anti-graffiti Americans and local spray-painters.
Christoph Niemann returns with a visual diary of flying to Berlin.
Rdio launches, bringing Spotify-like music subscription service to U.S. and Canada.
Acoustic engineer explains the soundscape of London.
Op: Uploading your mind into a data cloud will never happen.
Q&A about BrainGate, machine that enables paralyzed people to use thought to move objects.
Everything you need to know about The Singularity, aka Futurism's intelligence explosion, aka "the rapture of the geeks."
Hitchens: In whatever kind of a "race" life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.
Hemingway was first in print to associate "cojones" with courage; linguistic links between testicles and valor go deeper.
New Yorker cartoons captioned with Kanye West's tweets.
Novelist interviewer reflects on novels where interviewers are bashed, despised, disappeared.
Video: Strauss's Salomé at the Verbier Festival; Hot Chip's Surveillance.