Category: News

Every dog owner has the sense that their pet knows when they’re feeling big emotions, whether you’re angry and your dog knows to give you space or you’re feeling sad and they nuzzle up next to you on the couch.

However, scientists have never been sure whether pet dogs are picking up on visual or audio cues to get a sense of their owners’ emotions or if they are tuned into something more profound.

A new study published in the scientific journal PLOS One has found that when humans are stressed we have a change in body odor and our dogs take notice and act accordingly.

“The take-home message of this study is that our bodies’ psychological stress response changes the smell of our breath and sweat and that dogs can detect this change,” Clara Wilson, a Ph.D. student in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast, told Gizmodo.

To find out if dogs can smell our stress, researchers took sweat and breath samples from 36 human volunteers before and after they were given a tricky math question. The humans were asked to count backward from 9,000 in increments of 17.

Doesn’t the idea just make you sweat?

Four dogs were trained to detect stress smells by learning to differentiate the scents from three different types of gauze, one that was unused, one from someone who was stressed and another from the same person before they were given the stressful math question.

After the guessing sessions, the dogs were 93.5% accurate at differentiating the stress odors from the other scents.

“This study provides further evidence of the extraordinary capabilities of ‘man’s best friend,’” the study’s first author, animal psychologist Wilson, said according to NBC News.

But that doesn’t mean dogs are only using scent to pick up on our emotional states.

“While it is likely that in a real-life context dogs are picking up on our stress from a variety of context cues, we have shown using a laboratory study that there is a confirmed odor component that is likely contributing to dogs’ ability to sense when we are stressed,” Wilson continued.

This is just another incredible example of how well dogs can smell. For comparision VCA Animal Hospitals says that dogs can smell anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 times better than people.

If dogs can smell our stress, I wonder what else they are smelling on us?

The study gives us some insight into the close relationship between humans and dogs. But it may also provide new ways of training service dogs to better care for their human friends. If dogs can learn to quickly smell emotions they may become even better at taking care of humans.

“Knowing that there is a detectable odor component to stress may raise discussion into the value of olfactory-based training (e.g., taking samples from a person when relaxed and experiencing stress) and positively reinforcing the dog to attend or perform attention-seeking behaviors in response to this odor,” Wilson said.

Over a year ago, Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchens died from injuries that she sustained from a firearm held by Baldwin. He has maintained that he didn’t fire the gun, which was somehow loaded with real bullets despite being declared a “cold” weapon. The situation only grew messier over the past year or so, with the official FBI investigation finding that the gun wouldn’t have fired if someone hadn’t pulled the trigger. Previously, Baldwin publicly suggested that Rust plaintiffs went after deep-pocketed defendants, and a lawyer for Hutchins’ estate called some of Baldwin’s actions (in the aftermath of the incident) “shameful.”

Baldwin was, in fact, exonerated by the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau’s investigation, which found that he believed that the gun only held dummy rounds, and his producing responsibilities only extended to creative decisions and budgetary matters and had nothing to do with crew member hiring or negligence that resulted from hiring practices.

Fast forward to now, and the powers that be have decided to reboot production on the film in early 2023. The original cast will be in tow, and Halyna’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, will be onboard as executive producer. This is happening as part of producers’ (and that includes Baldwin) settlement with Halyna’s family. Via Deadline:

“We have reached a settlement, subject to court approval, for our wrongful death case against the producers of Rust, including Alec Baldwin and Rust Movie Productions, LLC. As part of that settlement, our case will be dismissed,” said Matthew Hutchins this morning.

“The filming of Rust, which I will now executive produce, will resume with all the original principal players on board in January 2023,” added Hutchins. “I have no interest in engaging in recriminations or attribution of blame (to the producers or Mr. Baldwin),” he added, “All of us believe Halyna’s death was a terrible accident. I am grateful that the producers and the entertainment community have come together to pay tribute to Halyna’s final work.”

Again, casting for the film will remain intact, meaning that Baldwin will return to his role of Harland Rust, and this also includes Jensen Ackles, who previously posted a tribute while calling Halyna’s death “a tragedy of epic proportions.” Also on board: Joel Souza, who was wounded by the live round that killed Halyna and will return to direct.

(Via Deadline)

Based on nothing more than a teaser poster and the involvement of Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto, it’s not insane to already call The Super Mario Bros Movie a better Mario movie than Super Mario Bros. Will this bold claim still be true if the movie begins with Chris Pratt’s Mario, sounding exactly like Andy Dwyer and Star-Lord and what’s-his-face from Jurassic World, saying something like, “My life is a lot like a video game”? We’ll find out soon enough (tomorrow!), but at least one of the movie’s stars didn’t have to get drunk to finish making it. I mean, probably. You never know with Jack Black.

Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, 1993’s Super Mario Bros. has a long, tortured history, which you can read about it here. But the tl;dr version can be summed up through quotes over the years from the late, great Bob Hoskins, who played Mario.

The Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Mona Lisa legend only learned Mario was a video game character after agreeing to star in the movie. “I didn’t even know it was a game,” he said. “It was my kids that told me. They said, ‘What’s your next film’, and I said ‘Super Mario Bros.’ ‘Oh, that’s the game.’” Hoskins had no idea what his kids were going on about, so they showed him the video game. “And I saw this thing jumping up and down,” he said, “and thought [sobering, Chris Pine-style pause], I used to play King Lear.”

That’s my second favorite actor quote ever, after “I cannot sanction your buffoonery.”

Things only got worse once filming started. From a 1992 set report:

“All these rewrites get frustrating so I don’t do too much research,” says Hoskins grimly, while waiting all morning for the directors to decide the shot. “The trick is: Don’t take the job too seriously, turn up and do your day’s work. That’s all.”

Hoskins and John Leguizamo, who played Luigi, would get drunk between takes, “a habit that may have contributed to Hoskins breaking a finger during a driving stunt,” the Guardian theorized. He also told Entertainment Tonight that “if you’re going to survive this film, you’re going to have to be very, very careful… I got stabbed four times. Electrocuted. Broke a finger. Nearly got drowned. And that’s just what happened to me.”

Hoskins later called making Super Mario Bros. a “f*ckin’ nightmare.” And he wasn’t done: “The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks their own agent told them to get off the set! F*ckin’ nightmare. F*ckin’ idiots.”

In 2011, Hoskins participated in a rapid-fire Q&A interview with the Guardian. When the actor was asked to name the worst job he ever agreed to, he replied, “Super Mario Brothers.” What has been your biggest disappointment? “Super Mario Brothers.” If you could edit your past, what would you change? “I wouldn’t do Super Mario Brothers.”

I’m beginning to think Bob Hoskins did not enjoy making Super Mario Bros.

Maybe in 20 years, Seth Rogen will share all the dirty laundry about voicing Donkey Kong in The Super Mario Bros Movie, and how Anya Taylor-Joy flushed his weed down the toilet and Chris Pratt broke his precious pottery, or whatever. But more likely, it was a smoother production than making the original Mario movie. Less terrifying goombas, too.

The Super Mario Bros Movie comes out on April 7, 2023.

Nick Cave shared a new video of a recorded performance featuring his song “Earthlings.” The live version served as both part of Cave’s Ghosteen album sessions from 2018, along with being filmed (and directed) by Blonde‘s Andrew Dominik for Cave’s film with Warren Ellis — This Much I Know To Be True. Despite this, the “Earthlings” live performance wasn’t included in the final take and remained in the archives (until today).

“‘Earthlings’ is the missing link that binds ‘Ghosteen’ together,” Cave told NME. “A lovely song that just got away. Yet another entry into the mighty and mysterious work ‘The Secret Life Of Children’.”

Cave and Ellis first wrote the song together during the Ghosteen album sessions. According to Louder Sound, “Earthlings” was originally called “Krishna” — before it appeared and was changed for 2021’s B-Sides & Rarities Part II.

In addition to the new video, Cave also listed a picture disc vinyl of “Earthlings” on his store. “The Earthlings picture disc is a collectors’ piece capturing the ghostly little song that never quite made it,” the website reads. It features a found photo as the vinyl disc art, referencing Cave’s secretive “The Secret Life Of Children” project.

Watch Cave perform “Earthlings” above.

Hip-hop history is full of storied record labels that contributed to the wide and varied tapestry of the art form. And while most fans can easily call to mind names like Bad Boy, Def Jam, Murder Inc., Roc-A-Fella, and Ruff Ryders, a name that often gets overlooked in the discussion of the most impactful labels in hip-hop is Steve Rifkind and Rich Isaacson’s Loud Records, the recording home of groundbreaking acts like Big Pun, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep, Three 6 Mafia, Twista, Wu-Tang Clan, Xzibit, and more.

The label got its due last night at the 2022 BET Hip-Hop Awards though. Many of the acts listed above represented as the show paid tribute to Loud’s impressive legacy. Dead Prez kicked things off with a performance of their signature 2000 hit “Hip Hop,” then Havoc came out to perform Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm” joined by Joey Badass and Lil Kim. M.O.P. performed “Ante Up” with Remy Ma, who appears on the song’s remix, then Remy stuck around with fellow Terror Squadder Fat Joe for a rendition of Big Pun’s “Not A Player” and the thunderous “Lean Back.” David Banner showed up “Like A Pimp,” Project Pat put on for the “Chickenhead,” and Three 6 Mafia played “Stay Fly.” Then RZA, Raekwon, Method Man, and Inspectah Deck popped out for a medley of Wu-Tang hits including “Method Man” and “C.R.E.A.M.”

In addition to the Loud tribute, the 2022 BET Hip-Hop Awards also saw Clipse reunite to perform “Grindin’” and the debut television performance of GloRilla, who is having one hell of a year.

You can watch the full performance above.

Last night (October 4) at the BET Hip-Hop Awards, Memphis rapper GloRilla won the award for Best Breakthrough Artist. This year, Glo had a string of hits, including the female-empowering “FNF (Let’s Go)” and the Cardi B-assisted “Tomorrow 2.” She performed both of those songs last night at the awards show.

She was presented the coveted honor by Tyrese and was joined by her Collective Music Group labelhead Yo Gotti as she accepted her award.

“I don’t want to cry my makeup off,” GloRilla said during her acceptance speech. “Yall, I’m crying. I want to thank God. I want to thank my team, my mama, Yo Gotti, the biggest CEO. Y’all I don’t know what to say! Let’s go!”

“FNF (Let’s Go)” became a viral hit this past summer, and while Glo has been working on breaking through in the realm of rap, she didn’t anticipate becoming a superstar so quickly.

“I ain’t envision it happening this fast,” she said in a recent interview with BET, “but every year since I started rapping, I would say, ‘Aight, this is the year it’s gone pop off.’ When I be on Facebook and I see all my old posts, I’m always saying something, like, to that effect. I knew it would happen; I just didn’t know when.”

To end a big year, GloRilla will drop her hotly-anticipated major-label debut album, Anyways, Life’s Great… next month.

Anyways, Life’s Great… is out 11/11 via Interscope and CMG. Pre-save it here.

The eyes of the basketball watching world were on Las Vegas on Tuesday night for the first of two games between the G League Ignite team and French squad Metropolitans 92. More specifically, the game pit the presumed top-2 picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, American guard Scoot Henderson and French big man Victor Wembanyama, against one another.

The Ignite won the game, 122-115, with both youngsters putting on shows. Henderson did his best work in the first half en route to 28 points on 11-for-21 shooting with nine assists, five rebounds, two steals, and only two turnovers. Wembanyama, meanwhile imposed himself on the game in the second half, as he had 37 points on 11-for-20 shooting while connecting on seven of his 11 attempts from three, with five blocks and four rebounds pitched in.

After the game, Wembanyama made it a point to praise Henderson after the first of two games they’ll play against one another.

“He’s tough to guard, just what I expected,” Wembanyama said. “I think the biggest part of his game is his aggressiveness — every time the ball is in his hands, it’s even something you feel on the court, he’s so dangerous. He can slash, he can shoot the ball. It was a surprise in a good way. He’s a great player.”

This is not the last time the two will play, as Metropolitans 92 and the Ignite are scheduled to take the floor again on Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET.

On his latest album, All 4 Nothing, Lauv taps into the sounds he grew up with in Philadelphia. Having been in the music game since he was 14, he has seen the musical landscape through many changes — from MySpace sharing to Spotify playlisting. As he’s grown as both an artist in his own right, as well as a producer and songwriter behind the scenes, Lauv, 28, says therapy has been a driving force in his creative process. Through therapy, he was able to reach his inner child, and recall the days of MySpace-era pop-punk for All 4 Nothing, which dropped this past August.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Lauv would share music on MySpace under the name Somersault Sunday. He would perform shows in his friend’s basement and throw EP release parties, and as he began to gain a following online, he would open for other indie pop-punk artists when they’d come to Philly to perform.

We catch up with Lauv on an August morning, the day before he is set to kick off his All 4 Nothing tour. His calming aura radiates across the computer screen, as he seems to be in a good headspace. He has a therapy session after our interview, for which he is an outspoken advocate.

”I feel like therapy has just helped me keep tabs of my progress as a person,” Lauv says, “like, what I’m working on, how I can deal with my OCD and anxiety, and how I can deal with depressive periods when I go through those. It also keeps me accountable, which is nice.”

Though Lauv lives in LA now, Philly will always be home to him. During his All 4 Nothing tour, he played The Met during the Philadelphia stop of his tour, which holds 3,500, more than 15 times the amount of people at The Barbary, where he played some his earliest shows.

In the early 2010s, Lauv would perform at The Barbary, hailed as the place to dance in Philly’s Fishtown district, alongside other big MySpace pop-punk acts, including Sparks The Rescue and The Morning Of. The Barbary, which is currently closed for improvements according to a post on their Instagram page, served as a venue for live bands, but also a nightclub for DJs to spin and ravers to dance. Lauv and his friends often volunteered to sell tickets for the shows, which would lead them to ask to open for touring acts when they’d perform in Philly.

Another important venue for Lauv was the rustic Trocadero Theatre, where he performed among the likes of indie-pop and rock groups I Call Fives and New County. The Theatre closed in 2019 after 100 years of operation, but venues like these small ones helped him figure out the kind of artist he wanted to be.

“Those pop-punk shows taught me the type of energy I love,” Lauv recalls. “It was through looking up to a lot of those bands, and a lot of those MySpace artists, that I cut my teeth to write songs that were in those vibes.”

Having put out music since he was a teenager, Lauv admits he faced a lot of rejection in his early days as an independent artist. Though he would continue to put out music, he took a step back and shifted his focus to writing, producing, and engineering. But he couldn’t fight the urge to get in front of a microphone and tap into feelings he had pushed back.

He began releasing music as Lauv in 2015, shifting from a pop-punk sound to one more inspired by bedroom pop and R&B.

“When Lauv naturally started happening, I think the biggest struggles for me were not overthinking and not worrying about what everyone thinks about me,” he says, “because I definitely think I’ve worried a lot about that.”

In the five years since the release of his sweet, puppy-love anthem “I Like Me Better,” Lauv’s music has become a little less poppy, and now recalls the days of rock-infused electronic sounds, popularized in the mid-to-late aughts. Though many of us may cringe looking back into our old iPods, Lauv manages to recreate the sounds of this era without making them sound dated.

For All 4 Nothing, he learned to write songs in a more immediate manner.

“It kind of started as a joke,” he says. “I was like, ‘I’m gonna learn how to freestyle rap.’ And I’m not good at that. I learned to write songs that were just very off the cuff, and that really helped me kind of find like topics and also just parts of myself that I hadn’t really tapped into before.”

As he is beginning tour, Lauv says the creation of this album has helped him get into a better headspace. He feels that now, he can fully experience the cities he’s in.

Though many of the places he used to play in are no longer in operation, Lauv always looks forward to reconnecting with old friends when he goes to Philly.

“All the spots I would go to as a kid, I feel like I don’t even know of anymore,” Lauv says. “I feel like every time I go, my friend takes me to his favorite spots. And I forget the names of a lot of them.”

One of the spots he’s visited in recent times includes Middle Child, a traditional deli in Fishtown, serving a variety of bagels, sandwiches, and biscuits. But of course, any time he’s in town, Lauv will always make time to eat at Wawa, a convenience store he describes as “7-Eleven on steroids.”

“They have a touchscreen deli,” Lauv says, “And I always order a chicken parm sandwich.”

To date, Lauv has received platinum certifications for his breakthrough single “I Like Me Better,” as well as his Troye Sivan-assisted “I’m So Tired.” He has also pulled in 4.35 million subscribers on YouTube, a nearly exponential amount compared to the 33,000 followers on his old MySpace page.

Having a team by his side definitely makes things easier for Lauv. Though he looks forward to playing for larger crowds these days, he admits he sometimes misses coming up as an artist in Philly, and the “DIY-ness of it all.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing at all,” Lauv says. “I look back and I kind of laugh. I’m like, ‘Damn, that was so uncomfortable.’ But I think the cute parts were getting kids from school to come see a show, or hosting our own release shows, or programming our own lights. My sister driving us on tour, that was also pretty cool. It was very DIY.”

Lauv has come a long way since his homegrown days. Today, he is more centered, more self-aware, and more in touch with his emotions. While his sound, aesthetic, and even his stage name have changed since Lauv began putting out music, he still feels proud to be from Philly — a city that has evolved in real-time with him.

“It’s obviously a historical city, but it’s also very much on the come-up,” he says. “It’s one of those cities that when I go back to, I feel it has a little bit of New York vibes, but like, is definitely way chiller. By far.”

Brendan Gleeson is a distinguished actor best known for In Bruges, The Guard, and Braveheart, as well as the Harry Potter films and Paddington 2, the greatest movie of all-time. But maybe he should be known for his sick skateboard moves.

Gleeson is hosting SNL this weekend (with musical guest Willow), which is an inspired choice for the sketch show. And an unlikely one. The 67-year-old isn’t as flashy as Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller, who hosted the season premiere, or next week’s host, rapper Megan Thee Stallion, but do they know how skateboard? I mean, maybe, but not with as much as gusto as “Mad-Eye” Moody, who slaps the cue cards out of stage hands and says “up yours, copper” to a security officer. All SNL promos should be this good.

The great Demi Adejuyigbe put it best:

Gleeson is there to promote The Banshees of Inisherin, the new film from director Martin McDonagh that also stars Colin Farrell. “Like In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin is a dark movie that is often downright hilarious. And The Banshees of Inisherin somehow manages to be darker than In Bruges,” Mike Ryan wrote in his glowing review. It opens on October 21. Bring your skateboard on opening night.

With a decade separating him from his final performance as Batman in The Dark Knight Rises, Christian Bale surprised both Marvel and DC Comics fans by jumping back into the superhero world with Thor: Love and Thunder. Unlike his more serious approach to the Dark Knight, Love and Thunder was a notably different type of production for Bale, and it was definitely not the place for him to do the deep character transformations that he’s been known for throughout his career.

In a new cover interview for GQ, Bale opened up about his Marvel experience, and he made it clear that unlike Jared Leto in Morbius, it would’ve been ridiculous to bust out the method acting for his Gorr the God Butcher performance.

“That would’ve been a pitiful attempt to do that,” Bale said. “As I’m trying to get help getting the fangs in and out and explaining I’ve broken a nail, or I’m tripping over the tunic.”

Bale also opened up about working in front of green screens for the MCU production, and it doesn’t sound like it was his cup of tea:

That’s the first time I’ve done that. I mean, the definition of it is monotony. You’ve got good people. You’ve got other actors who are far more experienced at it than me. Can you differentiate one day from the next? No. Absolutely not. You have no idea what to do. I couldn’t even differentiate one stage from the next. They kept saying, “You’re on Stage Three.” Well, it’s like, “Which one is that?” “The blue one.” They’re like, “Yeah. But you’re on Stage Seven.” “Which one is that?” “The blue one.” I was like, “Uh, where?”

Despite the “monotony” of his Marvel experience, Bale has signaled that he’s willing to jump into another visual effects heavy production. He recently told The Hollywood Reporter that it’d be a “delight” to be in a Star Wars movie, and he’s ready if his old friend Kathleen Kennedy ever calls him up. “I’ve still got the figures from when I was little.”

(Via GQ)