Poor Mojo's Newswire

In his session, "Heads We Win," Crowley is soliciting catchy headlines for a story on Leonard Nimoy's foray into cooking. "Spice: The Final Frontier," someone offers. "Spice me up, Scotty," says another. "Vulcan Kitchen." And so on. It's no surprise that the ideas come quickly. After all, these people write clever headlines for a living. But the task has a new sense of urgency. If all online searches are literal, what happens to the headlines that involve a play on words? Are those headlines relegated to the print edition, where headline writers have a captive audience? Indeed, as newspapers embrace search engine optimization, and as young journalists are taught to value Google visibility above all else, many copy editors fear that funny headlines are quickly going the way of the classified ad. Despite the fact that Crowley has won ACES' top award for headline writing, he regularly finds that his funny headlines for the Review-Journal have been re-written by the online desk to be more search-engine-friendly. For example, when Harrah's casino announced plans to build a new entertainment center with an observation wheel, Crowley came up with the headline "Brave new whirl." The online desk changed it to "Harrah's plans retail, entertainment center." "I understand the shift toward search optimization," he says. "But I think we're losing something when we take the wordplay and surprise out of headline writing." In a widely circulated 2010 article criticizing SEO practices, Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten made the same point by citing a Post article about Conan O'Brien's refusal to accept a later time slot on NBC. The print headline: "Better never than late." Online: "Conan O'Brien won't give up 'Tonight Show' time slot to make room for Jay Leno." The dearth of witty headlines on the Web is enough to make a copy editor cry. But rather than settle for a humorless future, some online editors are fighting back by refusing to embrace SEO guidelines for every story. "It's not about getting the most readers; it's about getting the 'most best' readers," says David Plotz, editor of the influential online magazine Slate.

If Google Books was a physical place instead of a web service, it would probably look a lot like the University of Chicago’s new library The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, opening next week, is designed to accommodate the way people study and research today — online. The structure’s large spaces are made for computer work and have no traditional bookshelves. Instead, the library boasts a massive underground storage area holding 3.5 million volumes on 50-foot-high shelves. The collection is managed by robotic systems that help create an environment where scholars can scour the web for hours for academic papers and still get a hard-to-find volume from the stacks. As more books and journals become easily accessible online, it’s easy to wonder if brick-and-mortar libraries could go the way of the video store. But research at the university has shown that the more people look to digital resources, the more they consult physical materials as well, according to Judith Nadler, director of the University of Chicago Library.

The problem with condoms is that they don't get used as often as they should. But an innovative new product by a British biotech firm may change men's minds: called CSD500, the condom helps men keep their erection longer. It's been dubbed the "Viagra condom," but that's not entirely accurate. The new product is lined with a vasodilating gel, which increases blood flow to the penis and helps maintain erection. But unlike the pill, it's not designed for men who have erectile dysfunction; rather, it's meant for men who have trouble keeping erections specifically while using a condom.