Rotundus.com

Report: Al-Qaida affiliate possesses highly undetectable liquid explosive

"According to the report, clothes may be dipped into the liquid explosives, and become explosive themselves once the liquid dries." Is the next item to be banned from flight your clothing?

LA Restaurant Has 45-Page Water Menu, Water Sommelier

The water menu actually appears to only be 25 pages. Apparently they offer a $12 water tasting menu if you're having trouble deciding on a particular water to drink.

It Is Now Common Knowledge That US Drones Bomb Civilian Rescuers

Some additional comments on a Reuters article covering a drone strike which notes that "Many were wounded in the attack, local tribesman Kaleemullah Dawar said, but rescuers delayed for fear of falling victim to a second attack, a common tactic with drone strikes."

Women Reject Sexually Promiscuous Peers When Making Female Friends

"College-aged women judge promiscuous female peers -- defined by bedding 20 sexual partners by their early 20s -- more negatively than more chaste women and view them as unsuitable for friendship ... participants' preference for less sexually active women as friends remained even when they personally reported liberal attitudes about casual sex or a high number of lifetime lovers."

HIV and/or AIDS sometimes lingers in the background of the stories on gay relationships, such as this NYT article which reflects mournfully on many past deaths. With much greater social acceptance of homosexuality in recent years has any of this changed? Looking at a CDC outline of the data on the topic (wherein MSM stands for men-who've-had-sex-with-men) the answer appears to be a fairly clear no:

Although MSM represent about 4% of the male population in the United States, in 2010, MSM accounted for 78% of new HIV infections among males and 63% of all new infections. MSM accounted for 52% of all people living with HIV infection in 2009, the most recent year these data are available.

So the greatly elevated risk of HIV/AIDS still seems to be there - if I'm crunching the numbers correctly the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is 50 times as high in the population of men who've had sex with men than amongst the rest of the population. (Per a CNN article citing an FDA source the increase in risk applies more broadly to infectious diseases not just HIV/AIDS, though it's unclear from my reading how relative risk compares for other specific diseases).

Canada now requires 5 years since the last male-to-male sexual contact for blood donations. Despite a large chunk of the comments on that article basically calling the policy homophobic and lacking scientific justification the CDC data does seem to show the continuance of a very real, greatly increased risk HIV/AIDS for the group. Just how long a ban is needed before tests can detect problems is another question - countries placing no limits on blood donations from men who've had sex with men seem to be only a small minority at the moment. The length of the period of abstinence required does vary from country to country though despite most often remaining an indefinite ban.

Shanghai's 26-year mega-city transformation captured

"Shanghai's dramatic transformation into a skyscraper-packed megalopolis with a population of around 23 million has been captured in two photographs taken just 26 years apart." Quite a difference between the photos.

University of Minnesota research reveals luxury products' role in relationships

According to one of the researchers: "a woman who is wearing luxury items and designer brands is perceived to have a more devoted partner and as a result other women are less likely to flirt with him" And this next bit makes total sense to me: "The fact that most women’s luxury products are aimed to impress other women helps explain why men have a hard time figuring out if a woman’s handbag costs $50 or $5,000 ... Women’s designer products are geared to show off to other women not men."

Police: Saggy pants may have contributed to Youngstown man's fall

Can we ban them now ... purely for safety reasons of course?

Teen dating abuse is common and complex, studies say

"29% of girls and 24% of guys said they had been both victims and abusers, in the same or different relationships." You might almost think that people have imperfect relationships and do stupid things every now and then.

Diet soda may do more harm than good

"Purdue University researchers reviewed a dozen studies published in past five years that examined the relationship between consuming diet soda and health outcomes. They then published an opinion piece on their findings in the journal Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, saying they were “shocked” by the results. 'Honestly, I thought that diet soda would be marginally better compared to regular soda in terms of health,' said Susan Swithers, the report's author and a behavioral neuroscientist and professor of psychological sciences. 'But in reality it has a counterintuitive effect.'"

Greece's Unemployed Young: A Great Depression Steals the Nation's Future

A surprising sentence: "the government recently announced it will be laying off all university security guards, except those with a master’s degree or a Ph.D."

It happened to me: I'm a single mom who got pregnant again on my first date in 10 years

Two sentences that don't line up: "During that decade I relied on welfare, housing assistance, and food stamps to help me support my daughter while I earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I was an independent woman" That's a very strange definition of independent.

A Crime Against Gay Israelis Is a Symbol, but of What?

"On Aug. 1, 2009, a masked gunman opened fire at the Barnoar, a center for largely closeted lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths in Tel Aviv, killing two and wounding many others. The shooting ... was immediately deemed a hate crime ... in June, as rainbow flags flapped around the city for the annual Pride festivities, the police stunned the community when they announced that the Barnoar killers had been caught, and the investigators were no longer calling it a hate crime but rather an act of personal revenge. ... One of those arrested was the center’s director, now 50, who was accused of having a sexual relationship with a boy, then 15, whose relatives are suspected of committing the crime in response."