The Facebook mistakes people make after a date

February can make people excitable.

A new year is barely old. Hope springs eternal. And then there's Valentine's Day to add a little piquancy to their emotional state.

Sometimes, though, lovers suffer from a certain lack of self-control. This can manifest itself on society's everyday manifest: Facebook.

I was moved, therefore, that someone had taken the time to list the major faux pas that occur when social contact accelerates beyond decent norms.

I am lovingly grateful to Ranker, which has taken it upon itself to reduce the rancor that might be caused by Facebooked overenthusiasm -- the site has listed behavior to avoid.

Apparently the worst thing you can do after meeting someone in whose charm and personality you might be interested is to immediately send them a Facebook friend request.

This might seem obvious to some.

You don't necessarily have any idea what the other person might really think of you. You know, inside their heads.

And, as Ranker wisely offers: "Now you've just given yourself something else to obsess over: 'Why hasn't my friend request been accepted? Why is it taking so long? Did they even see it?!'

And from one small click, a whole new series of sessions with your shrink is created.

It seems, though, that the human imagination has found many more ways of ruining the course of true love on Facebook.

People apparently pore over their new date's Facebook page, seeking secrets to their true friends, thoughts, and, who knows, other objects of affection.

Some devolve into what seems utterly psychotic behavior, such as liking old photos of their new potential paramour. Who does that? Twisted humans, that's who.

But Facebook offers so many more opportunities for self-destruction.

There's revealing too much in your status update. Sample: "I just went on the best date ever with Marie Dupree and her sexy knees."

More Technically Incorrect

Some people, though, go even further and attempt to insert themselves into comments on their love-object's Facebook page, should they already be Facebook friends. Sample: "You look so WONDERFUL when you're saluting the sun, Shoshanna. Can't wait until we do some saluting together!!"

No, it doesn't end there.

The Facebook gauche end up stalking every second of their new friend's Timeline. ("She dated a clown in 2008? Why would she DO that?")

Worse, there are apparently instances of enthusiasts who get so carried away that they start friending the families of their new objects of affection. ("Hi, Mrs. Aziel, you don't know me, but your daughter and I...." Oh, you finish the sentence.)

Facebook offers so many avenues of potential despair that there is only one way that you can use it to avoid complication, pain, sorrow, heartbreak, sleepless nights, and that bottomless feeling of lost opportunity: Don't go anywhere near it.

Top 10 Facebook Mistakes to Avoid After 1st Dates

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

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Fiery Last-Lap Daytona Crash Injures Dozens

A fiery last-lap crash at the Daytona International Speedway today sent chunks of debris flying into the stands, injuring more than 30 spectators, who were seen being carried away from the stands on stretchers.

At least 14 of the injured were transported to hospitals and more than a dozen others were treated at the speedway, Dayton president Joie Chitwood III. All the drivers involved in the crash have been treated and released, Chitwood said.

ESPN reported that one of the spectators taken to the hospital was on the way to surgery with head trauma.

The 12-car crash happened moments before the end of the Nationwide race, and on the eve of the Daytona 500, one of NASCAR's biggest events.

The crash was apparently triggered when driver Regan Smith's car, which was being tailed by Brad Keselowski on his back bumper, spun to the right and shot up the track. Smith had been in the lead and said after the crash he had been trying to throw a "block."

PHOTOS: Crash at Daytona Sends Wreckage Into Stands

Rookie Kyle Larson's car slammed into the wall that separates the track from the grandstands, causing his No. 32 car to go airborne and erupt in flames.

When a haze of smoke cleared and Larson's car came to a stop, he jumped out uninjured.

His engine and one of his wheels were sitting in a walkway of the grandstand.

"I was getting pushed from behind," Larson told ESPN. "Before I could react, it was too late."

Tony Stewart pulled out the win, but in victory lane, what would have been a celebratory mood was tempered by concern for the injured fans.

"We've always known this is a dangerous sport," Stewart said. "But it's hard when the fans get caught up in it."

Repairs are under way on the fence where the crash happened and are expected to be completed before the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Chitwood said.

He told reporters NASCAR does not anticipate having to move any of their fans for the Daytona 500 and expects all seats will be filled.

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Rusty rocks reveal ancient origin of photosynthesis

SUN-WORSHIP began even earlier than we thought. The world's oldest sedimentary rocks suggest an early form of photosynthesis may have evolved almost 3.8 billion years ago, not long after life appeared on Earth.

A hallmark of photosynthesis in plants is that the process splits water and produces oxygen gas. But some groups of bacteria oxidise substances like iron instead – a form of photosynthesis that doesn't generate oxygen. Evolutionary biologists think these non-oxygen-generating forms of photosynthesis evolved first, giving rise to oxygen-generating photosynthesis sometime before the Earth's atmosphere gained oxygen 2.4 billion years ago (New Scientist, 8 December 2012, p 12).

But when did non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis evolve? Fossilised microbial mats that formed in shallow water 3.4 billion years ago in what is now South Africa show the chemical fingerprints of the process. However, geologists have long wondered whether even earlier evidence exists.

The world's oldest sedimentary rocks – a class of rock that can preserve evidence of life – are a logical place to look, says Andrew Czaja of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. These rocks, which are found in Greenland and date back almost 3.8 billion years, contain vast deposits of iron oxide that are a puzzle. "What could have formed these giant masses of oxidised iron?" asks Czaja.

To investigate, he analysed the isotopic composition of samples taken from the oxidised iron. He found that some isotopes of iron were more common than they would be if oxygen gas was indiscriminately oxidising the metal. Moreover, the exact isotopic balance varied subtly from point to point in the rock.

Both findings make sense if photosynthetic bacteria were responsible for the iron oxide, says Czaja. That's because these microbes preferentially oxidise only a small fraction of the dissolved iron, and the iron isotopes they prefer vary slightly as environmental conditions change (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, doi.org/kh5). His findings suggest that this form of photosynthesis appeared about 370 million years earlier than we thought.

It is "the best current working hypothesis for the origin of these deposits", says Mike Tice of Texas A&M University in College Station – one of the team who analysed the 3.4-billion-year-old microbial mats from South Africa.

William Martin at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, agrees. "Anoxygenic photosynthesis is a good candidate for the isotope evidence they see," he says. "Had these fascinating results been collected on Mars, the verdict of the jury would surely remain open," says Martin Brasier at the University of Oxford. "But [on Earth] opinion seems to be swinging in the direction of non-oxygen-generating photosynthesis during the interval from 3.8 to 2.9 billion years ago."

This article appeared in print under the headline "Photosynthesis has truly ancient origins"

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Microsoft added to hacker hit list

SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft joined Facebook and Apple on Friday on the list of US technology titans targeted in recent cyberattacks.

"As reported by Facebook and Apple, Microsoft can confirm that we also recently experienced a similar security intrusion," Trustworthy Computing team general manager Matt Thomlinson said in a blog post.

"During our investigation, we found a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit, that were infected by malicious software using techniques similar to those documented by other organizations."

There was no evidence customer data was stolen but an investigation into the attack was continuing, according to Thomlinson.

"This type of cyberattack is no surprise to Microsoft and other companies that must grapple with determined and persistent adversaries," he said.

Apple said Tuesday that hackers invaded its system in an attack similar to one recently carried out against Facebook, but that it repelled the intruders before its data was plundered.

The maker of iPhones, iPads, iPods and Macintosh computers said it was working with law enforcement officials to hunt down the hackers, who appeared tied to a series of recent cyberattacks on US technology firms.

"The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers," Apple told AFP.

The malicious software, or malware, took advantage of a vulnerability in a Java program used as a "plug-in" for Web-browsing programs.

A "small number" of computer systems at Apple were infected but they were isolated from the main network, according the Silicon Valley-based company.

"There is no evidence that any data left Apple," Apple said.

Word of hackers hitting Apple came just days after leading social network Facebook said it was "targeted in a sophisticated attack" last month, but that no user data was compromised.

Facebook said malware that infected some of its machines came from a mobile developer website that had been booby-trapped.

Early this month, Twitter said it was hammered by a cyberattack similar to those that recently hit major Western news outlets, and that the passwords of about 250,000 users were stolen.

While those behind the attacks had yet to be identified, computer security industry specialists have expressed suspicions about China-sponsored hackers and Eastern European crime gangs.

- AFP/ir

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Crave Ep. 110: Prevent a hangover with the worlds first 'sober pill'?

Prevent a hangover with the worlds first 'sober pill'? Ep 110

Subscribe to Crave:

iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)

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This week on Crave, William Shatner has some choice words for J.J. Abrams, and we toss one back in the greatest drinking game ever invented. Cheers! Plus, we dodge a bullet the size of a football field as an asteroid nearly collides with Earth. Phew.

Crave stories:

- Russian meteorite fragments pop up for sale online

- Amazon opens celebrity memorabilia store

- Nanotech 'sober pill' could one day de-drunk you

- This sheet turns your windows into mirrors

- Man to get first bionic hand that can 'feel'

- Sony PS4 event skewered in animated parody

- Crave giveaway! Kanex Sydnee four-port recharging station

Social networking:

- Stephen on Twitter

- Stephen on Google+

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Space Pictures This Week: Space Rose, Ghostly Horses

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  Space Rose

  Image courtesy T.A. Rector and H. Schweiker, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSF

  Planetary nebula Sh2-174 "blooms" like a rose in a picture released this week by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO).

  Nebulae are created when low-mass stars shed their outer layers at the end of their lives. The core of the dying star, called a white dwarf, usually remains at the center of the nebula.

  But not so for the oddly positioned Sh2-174: Its white dwarf is located in the right part of the nebula, in the blue gas pictured above. (See more nebula pictures.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











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  Universal Delivery

  Photograph courtesy NASA

  An unpiloted resupply vehicle snapped this picture as it approached the International Space Station this week.

  The vehicle provided the 34 crew members on board with essential supplies, including oxygen, water, spare parts, even logistics equipment—2.9 tons of supplies in all. (See pictures of early U.S. spaceflight.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











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  Everglades of Europe

  Image courtesy Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, EO-1/NASA/USGS

  The Danube cuts a jade path across part of the Danube Biosphere Reserve in the Ukraine on its way to the Black Sea in an image captured February 5 by NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite.

  Europe's largest river, the Danube spans 309,447 square miles (801,463 square kilometers) and winds its way through 19 countries.

  Called the "Everglades of Europe," the Danube delta is home to more than 300 species of birds and 45 species of fish, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. (See more river pictures.)

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











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  Bird's-Eye View

  Image by Maurizio Cabibbo, My Shot

  Photographer Maurizio Cabibbo submitted this picture of the chaotic center of the Cygnus, or Swan, constellation on February 11 to the National Geographic photo community My Shot.

  Resembling a swan flying across the night sky, Cygnus is easily seen in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA.

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











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  Spirit Horses

  Photograph by Andre Erlich, Your Shot

  An aurora casts a ghostly glow over horses in northern Iceland in a picture submitted to National Geographic's My Shot photography community on February 18.

  Named after Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, the vivid beams of light from aurora borealis result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere. (See more aurora pictures: "Solar Flare Sparks 'Snakes,' 'Spears.'")

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  











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  Image courtesy SDO/NASA

  Published February 22, 2013

  
  

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Great Energy Challenge Blog

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Jodi Arias' Friends Believe in Her Innocence

Accused murderer Jodi Arias believes she should be punished, but hopes she will not be sentenced to death, two of her closest friends told ABC News in an exclusive interview.

Ann Campbell and Donavan Bering have been a constant presence for Arias wth at least one of them sitting in the Phoenix, Ariz., courtroom along with Arias' family for almost every day of her murder trial. They befriended Arias after she first arrived in jail and believe in her innocence.

Arias admits killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and lying for nearly two years about it, but insists she killed Alexander in self defense. She could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

Jodi Arias Testimony: Prosecution's Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Remains Calm Under Cross-Examination Watch Video

Jodi Arias Doesn't Remember Stabbing Ex-Boyfriend Watch Video

Nevertheless, she is aware of the seriousness of her lies and deceitful behavior.

The women told ABC News that they understand that Arias needs to be punished and Arias understands that too.

"She does know that, you know, she does need to pay for the crime," Campbell said. "But I don't want her to die, and I know that she has so much to give back."

Catching Up on the Trial? Check Out ABC News' Jodi Arias Trial Coverage

The lies that Arias admits she told to police and her family have been devastating to her, Bering said.

""She said to me, 'I wish I didn't have to have lied. That destroyed me,'" Donovan said earlier this week. "Because now when it's so important for her to be believed, she has that doubt. But as she told me on the phone yesterday, she goes, 'I have nothing to lose.' So all she can do is go out there and tell the truth."

During Arias' nine days on the stand she has described in detail the oral, anal and phone sex that she and Alexander allegedly engaged in, despite being Mormons and trying to practice chastity. She also spelled out in excruciating detail what she claimed was Alexander's growing demands for sex, loyalty and subservience along with an increasingly violent temper.

Besides her two friends, Arias' mother and sometimes her father have been sitting in the front row of the courtroom during the testimony. It's been humiliating, Bering said.

"She's horrified. There's not one ounce of her life that's not out there, that's not open to the public. She's ashamed," she said.

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Mood-sensing smartphone tells your shrink how you feel

PEOPLE with anxiety, depression or stress are often asked to record their mood changes throughout the day, helping psychologists fine-tune their treatment. But they often forget, recording only sparse information at best. Now an emotion-sensing smartphone app that automatically generates someone's "mood diary" could give psychologists all the data they need.

It's the brainchild of Matt Dobson and Duncan Barclay, founders of speech recognition firm EI Technologies, based in Saffron Walden, UK. Instead of relying on people writing diaries, the app, called Xpression, listens for telltale changes in a person's voice that indicate whether they are in one of five emotional states: calm, happy, sad, angry or anxious/frightened. It then lists a person's moods against the times they change, and automatically emails the list to their psychologist at the end of the day.

To work, the app has to be always on, listening out for the user's voice once every second, whether they are talking to family, friends, colleagues or even pets. It also listens in on phone calls. If the user is silent, the app does nothing. Crucially for the users' privacy, it doesn't record their words, instead seeking out telltale acoustic features – like pitch – that are indicative of emotional state.

This kind of emotion recognition via voice pattern already works well and is a "hot area" of research, says Stephen Cox, head of the speech processing lab at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who is scientific adviser for the firm.

Initially, Xpression will send 200-millisecond-long acoustic snapshots to a remote server where a machine-learning system will work out a person's emotional state before sending it back to the app for storage. Factors like voice loudness, intensity, changes in pitch and speaking pace allow the system to accurately estimate somebody's emotional state. "We extract acoustic features and let the machine-learning system work it out," says Cox. This ability will be built into the app itself eventually, says Dobson.

There's a strong need for this kind of technology, says Adrian Skinner, a clinical psychologist with the UK's National Health Service in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. "With conditions like depression, people tend to stop doing things like filling in mood diaries. If this app gives us more complete diaries it could help us better find the day-to-day triggers that raise or lower a patient's mood," he says.

The firm is a finalist in a UK government competition to identify the nation's top mobile tech company, to be judged on 26 February. An insurance company has already expressed an interest in using the app to ensure the workplace stress therapy it pays for is effective. Clinical trials are due to take place later this year.

This article appeared in print under the headline "We know how you really feel"

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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United Airlines extends 787 grounding to May

WASHINGTON: United Airlines said Thursday it expected to keep its six Boeing 787s out of service until May 12, as the cutting-edge airplane remained grounded worldwide due to battery problems.

United, the only US airline with the 787 Dreamliner, just two days ago announced it would keep them on the ground through March 30.

United has "tentatively" scheduled a 787 on its Denver route to Tokyo's Narita International Airport on May 12, UAL spokeswoman Christen David said in an emailed response to an AFP query.

"We are taking the 787 out of our schedule through June 5, except for Denver-Narita," she said.

A person close to the airline's situation noted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation of overheated lithium-ion batteries on the 787 was ongoing and schedule adjustments were necessary.

All 50 787s in service around the world have been banned from flight since January 16 after a battery fire on a parked plane and battery smoke on another one forced an emergency landing.

US and foreign investigators have reported progress in the probe of the lithium-ion batteries but have yet to pinpoint the cause of the problems.

Boeing is set to propose temporary fixes to the battery problems to US air-safety regulators Friday and could have them back in the air in two months, The New York Times reported.

The Times, citing industry and federal officials, said Boeing had narrowed down the ways in which the lithium-ion batteries could fail, concluding they would be safe to use after making changes such as adding insulation between the battery cells.

Boeing commercial airplane division chief Raymond Conner will unveil the proposals in a meeting Friday with FAA chief Michael Huerta, according to the Times.

Federal officials told the newspaper the aircraft could be back in the air by April if the fixes are approved.

A Boeing spokesman said the aerospace giant was aware of United's 787 schedule adjustments and reiterated the company's regret about the impact of the groundings on its customers.

Asked about the media reports that Boeing intends to submit a proposed battery fix to the FAA Friday, the spokesman declined to comment.

- AFP/ck

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