Online Daters Get Hotter on First Night

Condom move would humanize stars, help public health

(NEWSER) - Put on the condom already, porn industry, writes Kent Sepkowitz. Sheathing up will be a positive public health move, and could even humanize actors we can’t seem to consider as the same species as us. California is considering a request to force the industry to rubber up in the name of worker safety, but the benefit could be much more widespread. More»

From vampire lovers to geeks to punk rockers, a site for everyone

(NEWSER) - If the matches you’re finding on eHarmony are too vanilla, never fear: There’s a dating site out there for you, and Julie Gerstein of Lemondrop rounds up the quirkiest of the quirky:

• If you wear a lot of black: Find your “own personal Satan” at Gothic Match.
• If you really, really like your cat: Meet someone who understands at PURRsonals.com.
• If you are over-the-top obsessed with Ayn Rand: Yes, there’s a site for that. Check out the Atlasphere.

(NEWSER) - Online dating sites are so packed with possible matches that they cause “cognitive overload” in seekers, leading to unconsidered choices, the MIT Technology Review reports. The lovelorn may say they want a wider variety of candidates, but they spend less time evaluating them, new research shows. “More search options lead to less selective processing by reducing users' cognitive resources, distracting them with irrelevant information,” the researchers say. That hampers the “ability to screen out inferior options.” More»

Watchdog discovered threat in daily Web scan; notified CDC

(NEWSER) - A company that specializes in biosurveillance issued a warning about swine flu more than two weeks before the World Health Organization announced the possible threat, McClatchy reports. The Washington state firm, Veratect, scans tens of thousands of Web sites every day in search of potential medical concerns. It reported a respiratory disease emerging in Mexico April 6 on its website, then e-mailed CDC workers 10 days later when the outbreak appeared to be spreading. More»

(NEWSER) - Twitter and other social networks are creating a swine-flu panic out of a molehill with their instantaneous updates, Robert X. Cringely writes for InfoWorld. The quick flow of less-than-dependable information means “people with head colds decide they're really dying from a porcine-borne bug and flood emergency rooms.” And such a strain of internet-enabled paranoia could be a boon for cyberterrorists. More»