�����ԹϺ���

It looks like we’re in for a hot summer. From to a Austin courthouse, temperatures and tempers are rising nationwide. Yeah, the is so last week, but it looks like there’s no reprieve in sight.

And the craziness isn’t just limited to home. Flash flooding left in Russia and threatens to become . Meanwhile, militants have in Timbuktu. And the Persian Gulf isn’t getting any cooler as the U.S. sends in and a f.

On the heels of a very hot July 4th midweek holiday (), we were hoping for a slightly less disaster-filled week. But then, where would the world be without some turmoil or pessimism?

Thankfully, there is good news to report. A pesky MIT grad student has invented real life that can fact-check any article you’re reading. Unfortunately, truth is limited to whatever says it is. I suppose, though, there are worse things in the world.

Fact check this: Another reason to be chipper; , but . And in even better news, we’ve . But like lots else these days, it has to do with war. And horses. Which is why it’s a good thing (the horse angle, that is).

To continue on the surprising things trend, it turns out that . It’s hard to say whether this is a good or bad thing for peace (and the outdoors, because we know what good oil spills can do), but it’s happening.

We thought nothing would surprise us more than to learn that the land of milk, honey and bloodshed is flowing with oil, but something has; the leader of the Tour is (Twittics?). Thankfully, he has a well-established defense. He’s very talented, ergo his success shouldn’t come as a shock.

Naturally, I agree. Anyone comparing Wiggins to Lance is far too sane to argue with. Everyone knows that Wiggins’ team is utterly dominating the race, but that’s OK because Wiggins was a child prodigy who never focused on the Tour but got insanely good at it as soon as he and did really well at the Vuelta. Sound familiar?

You wouldn’t be an idiot for buying into that. But even if you are one, that’s OK, according to the Economist. Apparently, being dim-witted does have its advantages afterall.

With no more editorializing on our part, here are the week’s must-read stories:

Not that this should scare you or anything, but it looks like your chicken dinner is creating a drug-resistant superbug. Say hello to some nasty urinary tract infections. .

“But the origin of these newly resistant E. coli has been a mystery—except to a small group of researchers in several countries. They contend there is persuasive evidence that the bacteria are coming from poultry. More precisely, coming from poultry raised with the routine use of antibiotics, which takes in most of the 8.6 billion chickens raised for meat in the U.S. each year.”

Water has been hailed as tomorrow’s oil for decades. . Bond’s adventures may be fictional, but the worries about water are not unfounded. .

“The message that Texas needs to invest in its water infrastructure is clear enough. Less obvious is what’s between the lines of the plan’s dozens of charts and graphs: a story about a Western state that has never really thought of itself as such, a rapidly urbanizing state that still devotes half its water to agriculture, and a resource-rich state that, even in the midst of a devastating drought, has huge, untapped water resources that happen to be in the wrong place.”

We know that the outdoors is good for us—relaxing and creativity inspiring. We’ve seen the brain on nature, and it is good. But what your brain on the Web? .

“The current incarnation of the Internet—portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive—may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways.”

Without air conditioning, the recent heat wave would have been far more deadly than it was. So as much as Dokoupil may have you hating technology, it can still be a life-saver. Johne , The Wall Street Journal.

“Many people claim to disdain technology, but in last week’s deadly heat wave they were probably doing their disdaining in an air-conditioned room. Our ability to stay warm is a legacy of our fire-loving, Homo erectus ancestors. Staying cool, however, defied a technological solution until the Industrial Revolution.”

With the Tour in full force, it’s time to look back on cycling and its American heyday. .

“Six-day races come from the same era as dance marathons and flagpole sitting, though the cycling events were more athletic challenge than endurance fad. In early days, a single cyclist would ride for as many hours as his body and mind would allow, prompting a delirium by the end that drew the scorn of an —‘An athletic contest in which the participants ‘go queer’ in their heads, and strain their powers until their faces become hideous with the tortures that rack them, is not sport, it is brutality.’”