Ovulating strippers make bigger tips
Strippers looking to shake their moneymakers most profitably may need only swing to the beat of their menstrual cycles. In a revealing study, University of New Mexico researchers (three altruistic guys) recruited 18 subjects (scantily clad women dancers) to log their work shifts, earnings and menstrual cycles (phone numbers, too?) on a Web site for two months, or about 5,300 lap dances. The naked truth: participants scored $335 per five-hour shift while ovulating compared with $260 per shift during the luteal phase after ovulation and $185 while menstruating. The dancers' scientifically gyrating pelvises provided the first direct evidence for human estrus—the equivalent of a baboon's bright red rump—the group reported in Evolution & Human Behavior. (Evol. Hum. Behav.)

Japanese robot gives face massage
For a colder, less personal touch than an ovulating stripper can provide, how about a nice relaxing facial from a robot? Designed by researchers at Tokyo's Waseda University, the WAO-1 (Waseda Asahi Oral Rehabilitation Robot 1) sports six golf ball–size ceramic spheres on steely arms, which, guided by sensors at the base of each arm, deliver a gentle, computer-controlled facial kneading meant for people suffering from jaw problems. Creators of the massaging metal insect told the Associated Press they hope to bring it to hospitals and spas nationwide—assuming clinical trials don't end in black and blue pulp. (Associated Press)

Pedophile photo untwisted—pedophile less so
The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) released a digitally reconstructed image this week of a man who it said has appeared in some 200 photos sexually abusing 12 young boys, possibly in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003. The man—white, in his 30s or early 40s with receding dark hair—had "twirled" the image of his face to obscure it, apparently using the built-in "twirl" setting in Photoshop, the image-processing software. But it seems he was either technologically inept or wanted the world to discover his identity. Although Interpol kept its untwirling technique under wraps, citing fear of child abusers learning how to dodge it, readers of the blog BoingBoing.net were quick with instructions for reversing twirled images. (Interpol; BoingBoing)

Heading to Titan? Don't forget your umbrella
If the lakes of liquid methane weren't enough to keep you away from Titan, here's another reason not to spend your next vacation on Saturn's largest moon: morning drizzle. A new Science study reports signs of liquid methane clouds and light showers each time the sun rose over the western foothills of Xanadu, Titan's predominant continent. The drizzle, which may result from moist clouds blown upslope and condensed into coastal rain, dissipated after about 10:30 A.M. local time. (press release)

Your appendix: What is it good for?
Researchers have long wondered about another vacation spoiler: the appendix. The wormlike colonic cul-de-sac offers no known benefit, but lands hundreds of thousands of Americans in the hospital every year with appendicitis, a potentially fatal inflammation. Maybe civilization has outlived the appendage's value, say Duke University researchers, who propose that it once helped people repopulate their intestines with beneficial, food-digesting germs after outbreaks of cholera or other intestinal bugs wiped out their gut competition. If so, the close quarters of modern industrialized life may have rendered the appendix little more than a potential surgeon's fee. (AP; Journal of Theoretical Biology)

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