Friday 10th May 2024

The End of the ‘Photoshop Fail’

In 2017, Rihanna posted a photo of herself on Instagram in which she appeared to have an extra thumb. It was, in retrospect, the thumb-shaped canary in the coal mine. Although far from the first celebrity “Photoshop fail,” it just so happened to predict the era of faux-finger drama we now live in: AI image generators are universally, horrifically bad at rendering human hands. Today, an extra finger is a telltale sign of digital manipulation.

Flaws aside, faking it has never been easier. Advances in generative AI mean that anyone can spin up a faux picture of the pope wearing a chic white puffer, no design skills required. New AI image creators such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion use sophisticated technology to let users conjure entire worlds from just a few words. Instagram is rolling out AI-editing features; with a couple of taps, an everyday user can place their dog at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. We are living in the world Adobe Photoshop first teased 34 years ago—but it is no longer defined by the enterprise software.


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Did Something Happen to Our Necks?

It used to be that whenever someone on TV or in a movie fell off the roof or had a skiing mishap or got into any sort of auto accident, the odds were pretty good that they’d end up in a neck brace. You know what I mean: a circlet of beige foam, or else a rigid ring of plastic, spanning from an actor’s chin down to their sternum. Jack Lemmon wore a neck brace for a part. So did Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Roberts, and Bill Murray. For many decades, this was pop culture’s universal symbol for I’ve hurt myself.

Now it’s not. People on TV and in the movies no longer seem to suffer like they used to, which is to say they no longer suffer cervically. Plastic braces do still crop up from time to time on-screen, but their use in sight gags is as good as dead. In the meantime, the soft-foam collar—which has always been the brace’s most recognizable form—has been retired. I don’t just mean that it’s been evicted from the props department; the collar has been set aside in clinics too. At some point in the past few decades, a device that once stood in for trauma and recovery was added to a list of bygone treatments, alongside leeches and the iron lung. Simply put, the collar vanished. Where’d it go?


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The Book You’re Reading Might Be Wrong

Most nonfiction isn’t fact-checked. The Kristi Noem saga could change that—but it probably won’t.

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What I wish more people knew about deadly allergic reactions | Psyche Ideas

is a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy at Princeton University in New Jersey, US. In addition to avoiding her allergens, she spends her time researching people’s perceptions of social and political phenomena.

Last year, I nearly died because I was too polite to stick with saying No to a pastry. A loved one had baked it for my belated 30th birthday celebration. I declined politely at first. But they’d gone out of their way to make something. Was I rude for refusing? They offered a second, different baked good. No thank you. At the third offer, I relented and took a bite. Within seconds, my mouth felt tingly. Half an hour later, I was at the Emergency Room.

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One of Monet's Late Haystack Paintings Could Sell for More Than $30 Million

The sale of “Meules à Giverny” (1893) will coincide with the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris

In the late 19th century, Claude Monet created an astonishing series of haystack paintings, which are now among the Impressionist artist's most recognizable works. Later this month, one of those pieces—Meules à Giverny (1893)—will go to auction at Sotheby's in New York, where it's expected to fetch more than $30 million. 

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Hallucinogenic Plant Unearthed Beneath an Ancient Maya Ball Court

Researchers have found evidence of a nearly 2,000-year-old ceremonial offering at the site in present-day Mexico

At the site of an ancient Maya ball court, researchers have identified a bundle of ceremonial mind-altering plants—which may have been used as an offering to higher powers during the court’s construction.

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Dice Snakes Fake Their Own Deaths With Gory, Poop-Filled Theatrics

When attacked by a predator, the reptiles can play dead with convincing detail, employing blood and feces for the show

The nonvenomous, water-loving reptiles—named for their dotted underbellies—are some of the animal kingdom’s most dramatic actors, new research finds.

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Spend the Night in the Musée d'Orsay's Clock Room on the Evening of the Olympics Opening Ceremony

Airbnb will allow two travelers to book a one-night stay in the storied Paris museum, where they will watch the ceremony from a balcony overlooking the Seine

When the Olympics kick off in Paris on July 26, the opening ceremony will take place along the Seine. Instead of parading around inside a stadium, athletes will float down the river on boats representing each national delegation.

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Astronomers Discover an Atmosphere on a Hot, Rocky Exoplanet With an Ocean of Magma

It’s the best evidence yet of an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system, researchers say, and studying the distant world could provide insight into Earth's early days

Astronomers have spotted signs of an atmosphere on an exoplanet 41 light-years away from Earth—the best evidence to date for a rocky planet with an atmosphere outside our solar system, according to a statement from NASA.

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Locks of Beethoven's Hair Are Unraveling the Mysteries of His Deafness and Illnesses

Researchers found high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic in the German composer’s hair, which may help explain some of his many ailments

German composer Ludwig van Beethoven began losing his hearing in his 20s, a fact that deeply upset and embarrassed him. Over the years, his hearing loss worsened, and by the time he died at age 56 in 1827, the composer was totally deaf.

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