Guest Thinkers — October 15, 2010

Panic In Porn Valley as Actor Tests Positive for HIV

At least five major porn studios have shut down after an actor tested positive for HIV this week.

In my latest story for Working In These Times, I report on potential structural conflicts of interest in the industry-sponsored HIV testing program for straight porn in the San Fernando Valley. The industry often holds up the program as an excuse for why it shouldn’t have to follow California’s occupational health and safety laws about condoms on the set.

Industry representatives often claim that the testing program keeps the talent pool so clean that condoms are unnecessary. So, it should give us pause that the very (industry-supported) organization responsible for testing is also in charge of investigating itself when the system fails.

[Photo credit: Eschipul, Creative Commons.]

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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