Human social interactions get a fascinating visual representation in a computer-generated video by scientists in the United Kingdom. The shifting, jumping social networksjitterbug about, waxing and waning and almost seem to play tug-a-war with individuals who change their interests.
“It was fascinating to see how the cliques could form without any one person organizing everything,” Seth Bullock, one of the authors, said in a release. “We saw individuals moving from one clique to another. Over time some cliques disappeared while new ones were established”.

The researchers, from Royal Holloway, University of London, the University of Southampton and the Institute of Zoology at the Zoological Society of London, were interested in the fact that even though humans change friends over time, we often form cliques that can persist for years or lifetimes.

Using computer models, they created groups of individuals, some of whom shared interests and some of whom didn’t. The groups ‘rewire their edges’ and end up in relatively stable groupings. Though if one individual then changed their interests or politics, they suddenly acquired a new group of friends. For awhile their two cliques almost seem to fight over them before they achieve a stable equilibrium.

The results, the researchers believe, can help scientists understand how many social and biological systems maintain stable community structures despite ever-shifting members.

The study, ‘Stability in flux: community structure in dynamic networks’, is in this week’s edition of the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

By Elizabeth Weise

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You have to give props to those who go all-out during the holidays, especially those people who turn thousands of tiny lights into a full-fledged light show for the entire neighborhood to enjoy. To get you into the holiday spirit, Best Week Ever Video Editor Pete Schultz has put together this fantastic compilation of over 100 crazy Christmas light displays. Clocking in at just about two minutes, we can’t believe how many displays he crammed in there, let alone how bonkers some of these folks are about their holiday decor.

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Tonight is the night you’ve been waiting for. The event has received so much buzz, the
LA Times has put out a feature on it: “The book is Elterman’s chance to share his take on the late ’70s L.A. rock scene with younger kids who can only imagine what it must have been like to hang out with the Runaways, let alone shoot the band in its heyday,” Charlie Amter of the LA Times writes.

Iconic seventies photographer Brad Elterman has published a new volume featuring fifty-five black & white and color versions of his iconic images. Elterman had the incredible good fortune of arriving on the pop culture scene in 1974 as a teenager with a camera around his neck. He captured hundreds of legendary images of the kind most photographers can only dream. Like It Was Yesterday curates shockingly candid, under-produced portraits of larger-than-life personalities like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Joan Jett, Phil Spector, Joey Ramone and Muhammad Ali into a seventy-two page work of art.

“Brad’s photos provide a rare, often raunchy glimpse into a rock and roll history where it seems Brad is always at the right place at the right time, camera ready. There is even a photo of Dylan posing with a young Deniro at The Roxy in 1976! There might be a better chance of quadruplet albinos being born under a solar eclipse, than a cosmic opportunity like that happening again in a young photographer’s career.” – DiscoSalt

6 to 9pm, Thursday 2 December 2010
Kindly RSVP to info@leadapron.net

This British actor known for his diverse range of theater, film and television productions made a cult favorite movie in the 80′s that didn’t do so well in the box office. He revealed recently he once had a sordid, “experimental” affair with a straight actor he worked with on that film. It was a short-lived romantic relationship, but the two remain good friends to this day.

For their climactic showdown at a Boston bar in the Best Picture-winning The Departed, Jack Nicholson decided to raise the stakes a bit on co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. According to a new book and an interview with director Martin Scorsese, Nicholson pulled a real gun and threatened DiCaprio with it — a gun DiCaprio knew was real… and probably loaded.

He got the reaction he wanted, as you can see in the below clips.

“He didn’t tell me he had a gun. It was great . . . we took a lot out, but Leo’s reaction is real-time. I still get chills when Nicholson says, ‘I smell a rat.’ It’s so real to me.” [NY Post]

Here’s the scene, unfortunately split into two parts. The gun stuff is mainly in the second clip:

Kirsten Dunst spoke with Vanity Fair about her two year big screen hiatus and a steamy sex scene with Ryan Gosling in their new movie, ‘All Good Things.’
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