Supposedly, Henry Kissinger once said that “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Perhaps this explains the intriguingly-titled study from researchers in the Netherlands that was published ahead online July 19 in Psychological Science. Here’s the relevant section of the abstract:

Results showed that elevated power is positively associated with infidelity because power increases confidence in the ability to attract partners. This association was found for both actual infidelity and intentions to engage in infidelity in the future.

There are two potential ways to spin this information:

1. Scientific fact has set the bar. With power is associated with increased risk for infidelity, then people in authority such as politicians need not be held to the same expectations of monogamy as everyone else.

2. Take preventative measures. Recall the Prohibition era when temperance advocates pushed to ban alcohol because it was considered a threat to the home. Apply the argument to upholding the promises made in a committed, long-term relationship; if absolute power is bad, then giving the power to the people would mitigate this concern.

In case you haven’t seen this, the BBC has breathtaking images of the Northern Lights captured through time lapse photography on their site.

This isn’t the first time the Northern Lights have been captured on film – check out the 2009 footage from National Geographic

If you don’t get the reference, go find the book Partners in Wonder and read that story by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley. (And while you’re at it, read everything else – the stories are THAT good, especially the hysterical mad read that is the Ellison collaboration with Avram Davidson called “Up Christopher to Madness.” Done? Ok.) THEN come back and revisit this tweet from cnetfalcone

Tweeted 1/3/11

Let’s be honest – you thought exactly the same thing after reading about the highway in Greece that got shut down by frogs who left the pond in search of food, right? So are game developers out there taking note?

If you haven’t seen it yet, YouTube’s got a pretty impressive video on the need for biofuels, especially from plants, and how that en vogue word “genomes” plays a role in making this happen. Looks like the JGI also has some other interesting videos on their channel too, though a quick Google search reveals they’ve got a ton more videos on SciVee.

(Seemingly random trivia: If you’re a follower of NCBI ROFL like me, then it might be worth your while to check out a JGI video that features one of the UC Berkeley grad students that apparently created this sorta-like-Ig-Nobels-but-not collection of news. You can see this video on SciVee, the HD version on YouTube, and a slightly longer but easier to follow talk on SciVee again.)

Are you ready to send a message to the stars? If so, head over to HellofromEarth.net (header above) and type in a 160-character message in English (think of it as an extra-long but non-pointless Tweet if you need to) on the site.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, these messages are being aimed at Gliese581d, a planet located 20 lightyears from Earth which is supposed to be orbiting another star in what’s being called a Goldilocks (“not too hot, not too cold… just right”) zone.

The messages are expected to be sent on August 24th via NASA’s Tidbinbilla space station outside Canberra, Australia. Don’t expect a quick answer though: delivery isn’t scheduled until 2029. And replies aren’t expected to reach us until 2049 at the earliest.

I have to start by saying that the BBC rocks.

Seriously, how many news services can deliver a straight-faced story about crop circles caused by wallabies high on poppies?  And I had never once considered the possibility that these smaller cousins of the kangaroo had Gummi-Bear-jumping-here-and-there-and-everywhere powers when under the influence of an opiate. Surely they’d need said jumping abilities to cross continents and states, popping up all over the world and leaving behind tamped down grass and earth in a concentric circle.

To think, all this time I’d been pinning the blame solely on aliens in circular spacecraft.

Somewhere in one of J.D. Robb’s stories is a time-travelling boy who gleefully discovers flying cars in 2060.

But in one of those cases where truth is stranger than fiction, flying cars already exist in this time period. And this isn’t an April Fool’s Day hoax either. Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a startup called Terrafugia teamed up to develop a car with fold-up wings that also has the capability to get airborne. Unsurprisingly, the vehicle has been named the Transition.

Sometimes the best defense is the smallest one

For 2,000 years a pest that measures about the width of a pinkie fingernail from end to end has menaced the olive trees of the Mediterranean.

In 1998, the olive fruit fly was  detected in Los Angeles; it has since managed to spread to all olive growing regions in California. That’s not good for the state since it produces nearly all of the olives grown in the country. Olive production, which can rise to as much as 166,000 short tons in a year, sunk last year to just 65,000 tons, barely half of the originally projected production figures.

Behind every liberated woman is a ... hard-working washer?

In time for International Women’s Day, described as a day to celebrate “the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future,” comes an article from the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano with the following introductory sentences:

“In the 20th century, what contributed most to the emancipation of western women? The debate is still open. Some say it was the pill, others the liberalization of abortion, or being able to work outside the home. Others go even further: the washing machine.”

Articles like this one have already covered the controversial lines. The article in the original Italian appears here; use your own translator of choice to parse the entire text.