The Pentagon is wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessarily overpriced items like one $600 toilet seat; meanwhile, Virginia cops want to photograph a teenage boy’s erect genitalia as part of their investigation; meanwhile, some thinkers hold that Facebook may be good for science. These discoveries and more below.

Virginia Cops Want To Photograph Teen’s Hard Penis Because Child Pornography Is Wrong
So there is a 17-year-old boy in Manassas, Virginia. He has (had?) a 15-year-old girlfriend.

Car Insurance Companies Want to Track Your Every Move—and You’re Going to Let Them
The future of the average insured driver lies in telematics.

When Science, Customer Service, and Human Subjects Research Collide. Now What?
I’m frustrated that the state of public intellectualism allows us, individually, to jump into the conversation about the recently published Facebook “Emotions” Study.

The Giant Methane Monster That Can Wipe Out the Human Race
There’s something lurking deep under the frozen Arctic Ocean, and if it gets released, it could spell disaster for our planet.

The Pentagon’s $600 Toilet Seat Lives
The Pentagon paid Textron Inc. Bell Helicopter unit $8,123.50 each for gears that should have cost $445.06, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.

What Some Faculty Really Think About Nonacademic Careers
Last month a small national group of graduate career counselors met on the University of California at San Diego’s campus in La Jolla to discuss one of the academic world’s hottest and most vexing topics: how to help Ph.D.’s and postdoctoral scholars get jobs.

Last Call: A Manifesto For Transformation
This is more than an economic and political crisis: it’s a crisis of civilization.

Facebook Is Good for Science
Over the past two weeks, an important debate has taken place about the ethics of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by researchers at Facebook Data Science and Cornell University.