Science! "[S]cientists have proven that 'beer goggles' are real — other people really do look more attractive to us if we have been drinking. Surprisingly, the beer goggles effect was not limited to just the opposite sex among the ostensibly straight volunteers recruited for the study — they also rated people from their own sex as more attractive."
posted by ericb on Aug 14, 2008 - 50 comments

So you want to look like an anime character? Because wide eyes are more attractive, and, ahem, easier. And blue eyes are more attractive, but only to blue-eyed men. [more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Aug 11, 2008 - 32 comments

It's 1881. You're real estate speculator James Lafferty, and you've just bought a large parcel of empty, scrubby shoreside land just south of Atlantic City. Problem is, it's cut off from the AC streetcar line by a deep tidal creek. How do you entice potential buyers to make the trek over the inlet and look at your property? Build a giant elephant, of course. Capitalizing on the celebrity of P. T. Barnum's famous Jumbo, Lafferty built 65-foot tall Lucy the Elephant, the first of three giant elephants Lafferty built (followed by Cape May's Light of Asia and Coney Island's Elephantine Colossus). He even took out a patent on the very idea of buildings shaped like animals. Though threatened by decades of neglect and rot, the Save Lucy Committee began preservation efforts in 1970, moving her to her present site and giving her a complete restoration. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jun 22, 2008 - 21 comments

"There's no Brad Pitt of smell," Herz says. "Body odor is an external manifestation of the immune system, and the smells we think are attractive come from the people who are most genetically compatible with us." [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam on Jan 31, 2008 - 41 comments

The Exorcist Experience: U.S. soldier pops The Exorcist into his portable DVD player and discovers that he's right there, where the opening scenes were filmed. Now the Army (and movie director William Friedkin) plan to back an Exorcist-themed tourist attraction. Admission will be $2 or $5 with a kabob lunch.
posted by Holden on Feb 3, 2004 - 14 comments

Seeing is believing. Swapping glasses for contact lenses can dramatically increase success with the opposite sex, research on short-sighted students in a nightclub has found. Anyone else have similar experiences?
posted by edh on Oct 1, 2002 - 59 comments

The Oregon Vortex is a nice place to visit if you enjoy places where things roll uphill and things change size base on their position. Many have tried to figure it out. Physicist John Lister spent forty years there only to burn all his notes.

When is someone going to let the vortex genie out?
posted by john on Feb 20, 2001 - 40 comments