combination urinal/sink

A combination urinal and sink isn’t as weird as it sounds—it’s actually kind of genius. Latvian designer Kaspars Jursons’ newest creation, Stand, was inspired by concerns over both water waste and poor male hand washing practices. A sink nestled above the urinal provides a bold hygiene reminder, and the water used is then recycled to clean the unit.

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“It’s not just a fancy piece of art,” Jursons told NPR. ”The idea is about function and consumption. You are washing your hands in the sink on top of the urinal, and the same water that’s running is also used to flush.”

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The urinals are currently being manufactured in small batches and selling for around $590 each, and Jursons says that they’ve already saved thousands of liters of water in a Latvian concert venue.

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We can assume they’re getting men to wash their hands, too. A study earlier this year found that men were compelled even by the placement of a prompt more subtle than a sink in the face. When researchers posted signs in a college bathroom reminding men of the importance of hand washing, the practice went up more than 10%. Good thing, too, because a 2010 study found that men only wash their hands(PDF) in public 77% of the time—that’s compared to a 93% washing rate for women. And behavior is way worse in stadiums, where hand washing drops to only 65% for dudes (though ladies actually wash their hands even more).

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So if the idea of washing your hands over the urinal you’ve just used grosses you out, just remember: you probably weren’t even going to wash them in the first place, and that would be even ickier.

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Football on your Phone - Manning Brothers Music Video

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Texas Police Officers Probe Women's Genitals At Traffic Stops - Warning: The videos may be disturbing.

Two roadside stops by Texas police turned into humiliating episodes for four women after the cops conducted cavity searches on the victims while they stood at the side of the road.

Both cases happened in 2012, but are getting more attention since one set of victims came forward last month. Attorneys and civil rights experts suspect the cases aren't isolated – and show that someone, somewhere in Texas is training police to think this behavior is OK.

Both incidents were caught on video from the officers' dash cameras.

"When I saw that video, I was shocked," Dallas attorney Peter Schulte, a former Texas police officer, told the N.Y. Daily News. "I was a law enforcement officer for 16 years and I've never seen anything like it."

The first case involved Ashley and Angel Dobbs, an aunt and niece who were pulled over when an officer saw them throw cigarette butts out on the street. According to their lawsuit, the women deny throwing cigarettes out the window, but they went along with the officer's demands.

After he failed to find any drugs, he called for a woman officer to come on scene and search the women. The female officer, Kelley Helleson, arrived and started searching the women. She reached into each woman's pants, from the front and from the back, failing to change gloves in between. Both women say the officer reached her fingers inside their anuses and vaginal areas.



They were let go with a warning for littering after the officers found nothing incriminating.

Helleson has since been fired, and the women won a $185,000 settlement for the incident, according to TV station NBC DFW.

The second case emerged in July, involving Brandy Hamilton and Alexandra Randle. Heading home from the beach on Memorial Day weekend in 2012, they were pulled over by an officer for speeding. Hamilton was driving, wearing just a bikini. She asked if she could pull on a dress to cover up, but the officer said no.

After a lengthy stop, he called for a female officer to search the women. Again, using just one glove, she reached into the women's private areas and stuck her fingers inside.



There is a pending possession of marijuana charge against one of the women now.

The female officer, Jenny Bui, has been fired and the male officer, Nathaniel Turner, has been suspended, according to TV station KHOU. Hamilton and Randle say they're suing because they want to raise awareness that these kinds of things are happening to women in Texas.

ThinkProgress points out that the searches likely violated the women's Constitutional rights. Police have "wide latitude" to search vehicles, because the law doesn't give the same privacy rights to cars as it does to your home. But ThinkProgress points out that in order to conduct a cavity or strip search, officials must have some evidence that the person being searched might actually be hiding something there.

"It is doubtful that Texas police had any reason to specifically believe that the ... women searched in these videos were carrying marijuana in their vaginas or rectums," the website said.

Warning: The videos below may be disturbing. 

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American tourist snaps off finger to 600-year-old Italian statue, says he was trying to measure it

A Missouri man cracked off the pinky of a medieval work housed at Florence's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. The tourist apologized and was described as 'very disappointed.' No word on how much it will cost to replace the digit
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An American tourist was reportedly measuring the estimated 600-year-old statue's pinky finger when he broke it off.

An American tourist has sparked outrage overseas not for giving the finger but for accidentally taking one from a 600-year-old Italian statue.

An unidentified tourist at Florence's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo snapped off the pinky finger of a statue dating to the late 14th or early 15th century by medieval sculptor Giovanni D'Ambrogio, museum officials confirmed.

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MAURIZIO DEGL' INNOCENTI/EPA

Museum officials say the finger wasn't part of the original statue but say it's still not clear how long or much it will cost to repair the damage that's been done.

The tourist said to have been a 55-year-old man from Missouri, was reportedly trying to measure it when he violated museum decorum by putting his own hands on the marble art work titled, Annunciazione.

A security guard witnessed the tourist's destruction seconds too late.

NEW PRESS PHOTO / SPLASH NEWS/NEW PRESS PHOTO / SPLASH NEWS

The statue (center) by medieval sculptor Giovanni D'Ambrogio dates to the 14th or 15th century.

The museum's head, American Timothy Verdon, criticized the tourist's foolish behavior, vehemently scolding: "In a globalized world like ours, the fundamental rules for visiting a museum have been forgotten, that is, 'Do not touch the works.'"

The tourist apologized and was described as "very disappointed."

MUSEO DELL'OPERA DEL DUOMO

The tourist, who was in the company of three other people, was reported to the city police of Florence.

Verdon remarked that the finger was not the original but had been made out of plaster before being added at a later date.

"We are sure that the damage was caused by the American tourist because the work has recently returned from the exhibition at the Uffizi Golden Flashes, where it was exposed, and then on its return was carefully controlled," said Verdon.

It was not immediately known how much the repairs will cost or how long they will take.

"It is a fairly simple restoration will be done by the restorers of the Opera del Duomo," the museum told the Daily News in an email.

The tourist, who was in the company of three other people according to the museum, was reported to the city police of Florence.

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Strategic flirting in the workplace backfires on women

Maybe it’s time to forgo flirting as a career strategy, even if your boss’s boss finds it fabulously fun.

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Here’s why: Women are more likely to smile seductively or write provocative emails to advance their agendas or their careers in masculine organizations, then as a result, they’re more likely to be mistreated by coworkers, a new research paper indicates.

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The more masculine the culture of the law firms studied was, the more pervasive the flirting, according to a paper being presented to the Academy of Management Conference (pdf) this weekend.

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The authors call this “strategic flirting” as they focused on women using their sexuality as a way to achieve more on the job.

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“Don’t do it with the idea of getting ahead,” co-author Arthur Brief, a professor of business ethics at the University of Utah, said in an interview with Quartz. “Most of the data suggests it’s going to backfire.”

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In follow-up interviews, women in the study who flirted in the office indicated that other women were subjecting them to mistreatment, or “minor social sanctions.”

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“Just as flirting is a somewhat subtle behavior, we believe it will have a relatively subtle negative consequence,” the authors write. The mistreatment may include being ignored, treated rudely or excluded from work activities and other “subtle yet pervasive negative experiences people endure at work.”

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Their research was based on surveys of 281 women working at 38 US law firms. Two-thirds of the women were married, and on average they were in their thirties and had practiced law for 11 years. Women were asked how often they smile flirtatiously or play dumb and act like they need help from a man. They also were asked to describe their workplace environment based on stereotypical male and female traits.

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A masculine organization could be described as “assertive, aggressive and competitive” while a feminine one may be seen as nurturing and warm. Thegendered organization does not necessarily draw those traits from its ratio of male versus female employees, but by the values and characteristics that permeate it.

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Masculine organizations “are firms that encourage employees to aggressively use their assets, whatever they may be. Since it stands to reason that for women this will mean leveraging their sexuality, there tends to be significantly more flirting in these law firms than in others,” Oklahoma State professor Alexis Smith said.

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Yet when women they flirt at these types of organizations, they shoot themselves in the foot. In feminine workplaces, female flirts report less mistreatment as if their behavior is forgiven or overlooked.

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The authors previous research showed that women “who engage in sexual displays to get ahead” make less money and win fewer promotions than others. “Displays of sexuality are not consistent with what managers do,” said Brief, noting that there are some exceptions, such as “occupations …. where I would expect sexual displays to be rewarded, not punished.” One example, he noted, where sex is part of the company culture is at Hooters or Playboy.

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