Caleb Garling wrote about the business of space funerals:

• Multiple companies have sprung up that offer to send the remains of your loved ones into space – or to the heavens as some prefer to think of it.
• Companies that help with this don’t launch their own rockets. Rather they secure cargo space on rockets with other missions and hitch a ride with them.
• Because of the scheduling involved it takes around two years between signing a contract and the deceased blasting off into space.
• Not all of the remains are sent up. Usually only a “representative sample” since pricing is per gram and can quickly add up.
• It costs about $2,000 to send up a loved one in a capsule that will turn into a shooting star when it returns to earth and burns up in the atmosphere.
• On the other end of the scale, sending remains into deep space, towards another galaxy, will cost $12,500.
• All in all, though, the service is becoming increasingly popular since terrestrial earth funerals are rising in price and now aren’t that much cheaper than just sending someone off for a space funeral.
• Some companies are also working on a service that will (softly) land a person’s remains on the surface of the moon.

The full article is fascinating and provides many more details including the first person to be buried in space, and what the future of the business may hold. Read it here.

Source: Priceonomics

Vinta Mehta wrote about a study that seemed to explain the different preferences for breast size:

• One evolutionary theory posits that large breasts signal fat reserves and thus access to resources.
• The theory would predict then that men who feel that they are resource insecure would prefer women with larger breasts.
• Scientists found evidence for this with poorer men seeming to prefer large breasts in a woman, while richer men preferred smaller ones.
• Preferences may also change day to day and this seems to relate to hunger.
• Scientists found that hungry men are more likely to prefer women with larger breasts, while men who have recently eaten are more likely to prefer women with smaller breasts.
• A separate theory suggests that large breasts are evolution’s way of signaling that a woman would be able to bear a lot of healthy children.
• True to the theory scientists found that men who want children prefer larger breasts than those who don’t want any.

Read more details about the study here.

Source: Psychology Today

Via: Reddit

The Economist sought to create an economic model that explains how to make a financially successfully movie:

• The films that earn the most money are the ones that studios say they’ll spend the most money on…even if they don’t actually spend the amount that they said that they had budgeted.
• This seems to be because audiences take a movie’s announced budget as a signal of its quality and the studio’s commitment to it.
• If your movie is a sequel you can expect it to make $35 million more than a non-sequel.
• A superhero film will earn $58 million more than a non-super hero film.
• But don’t make your superhero too edgy…Deadpool excepted, having an “R” rated film will mean that a film will earn $16 million less.
• Having a famous lead actor doesn’t matter much. But it can help a little. Someone like Jennifer Lawrence or Leonardo Di Caprio in a starring role will see a film earn $10 million more.
• Make sure your film is released in the summer. That will mean an additional $15 million.
• As Batman vs Superman has shown critical reviews don’t really matter. Every ten percent that your movie is rated on Rotten Tomatoes will earn you a paltry $1 million more.
• Audience buzz is more important. A 10% boost in ratings from them will mean an additional $11.5 million for the movie.

Play around with the full model, and see how all of this will affect your Oscar chances over here.

Source: The Economist

30,000 refugees from North Korea have escaped Kim Jong Un’s repressive regime, writes Sokeel Park. 70% are women. Here’s why:

• North Korea is a patriarchal society with women having a lower status than men. This makes it easier for them to escape since they’re not expected to have the kind of initiative that escaping requires.
• There are also pull factors. Over in China the one-child policy has led to a low proportion of females, creating high demand for North Korean women as brides…and sex workers.
• Men, for their part, are required to spend their 20s doing military training in the interior of the country, far from external borders, making it difficult for them to escape during their prime years.
• Women might also be more likely to want to escape due to the South Korean television dramas that are smuggled into the country, which depict a level of freedom for women unthinkable in North Korea.

Read more here.

Source: Liberty in North Korea

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Economist took a look at an exciting Italian startup:

• Italians spend 400 hours a year – almost one business month – in queues, primarily for paperwork.
• This is estimated to cost the economy €40 billion.
• One entrepreneur decided to ease the burden by offering to find people who will queue for as little as €10 an hour.
• Potential employees are given a five-hour course over Skype where they are taught about the procedures required for various documents that they’ll likely queue up for.
• Of course hiring a queuer requires…more paperwork, including paying for welfare contributions, thus adding to the root of the problem.

Read more here.

Source: The Economist

Julia Alsop interviewed a consultant who specializes in training Hollywood stars in the art of BDSM:

• BDSM has seen a bit of a surge in popularity. After getting a boost from 50 Shades of Grey it’s now all over TV and Broadway, driving demand for consultants who can help actors understand the culture.
• In many ways consultants simply have to teach actors how to become second order actors. A lot of BDSM is playing the role of a “dom” or a “submissive”.
• Understand that character and you’ll understand how it’s not just the words you use, but also subtle things like how you position another person’s body, that get to the root of what BDSM is about.
• The consultant that Alsop interviewed did not work on the 50 shades of grey movie – but believes that the movie under-performed because its stars didn’t demonstrate the emotional connection that lies at the heart of BDSM.
• Top level consultants can have over $90,000 worth of kinky equipment. They can make at least some of it back by renting it out to movie productions.

Read the full interview. It is very much not safe for work.

Source: Vice

IZ is an online retailer that offers clothing specifically designed for those on wheelchairs:

• Usually clothes are designed assuming that the wearer is standing. They can look awkward the wearer is sitting down. IZ’s collection assumes a sitting wearer.
• Blazers have an arch cut into them (as pictured above) so that pressing into the wheelchair doesn’t cause the back of the blazer to become wrinkled.
• Pants are altered to reduce the amount of bunching in the front and riding in the back.
• Shirts drape at the waist instead of lower down.
• Magnets, zips, or Velcro strips might take the place of buttons to make it easier to get out of the clothes.

Read more here.

Source: IZ

Via: Marginal Revolution, Kottke

The Economist wrote that there’s a case to be made for eliminating large denomination notes:

• Most Swiss merchants don’t accept them, yet the 1,000 Swiss Frank Note makes up 60% of all Swiss cash in circulation.
• The notes are popular with criminals. According to one investigation only 10% of high denomination notes are used for legal purposes.
• High denomination notes are so valuable that the unscrupulous will sometimes pay more than face value for them.
• They’re attractive because of their anonymity. They’re also easy to transport. The SFr 1,000 is, for example, worth 20 times its weight in gold.
• Some countries are looking to follow Britain’s example- where the highest available note is £50.
• Others worry that this is the first step towards a cash-less society where anonymous transactions will be impossible – vastly increasing the power of the state.
• And taking a note out of circulation is slow. Governments can stop printing new ones, but old ones will still spin around. 16 years after Canada stopped printing the C$1,000 note, 20% of them remain in circulation.
• Any one country eliminating high end notes probably won’t have much of an impact either since dealers and traffickers will just move to high denomination notes of another currency.
• Still governments may give it a go. It would, for example, make it easier to impose negative interest rates since savers would find it more difficult to take their money out of the bank and hold it all in small denomination cash.
• It could also make it harder to evade taxes – an attractive prospect for austerity weary governments.

Read more here.

Source: The Economist