This is what your brain looks like on…the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Scientists just unveiled their new map of the brain, a $55-million project funded by Microsoft’s Paul Allen. After years of inputting brain images and genetic data into the project, scientists say they were surprised to discover that, neurally speaking, any two people are 94 percent alike. VIDEO

How bad does food have to get before you should toss it? The Boston Globe says relax, most “expired by” dates are “recommendations, not deadlines.” In an age where food-born illnesses are a dime a dozen, however, it can seem a little like tempting fate. That’s probably why Americans throw away 14 percent of their food purchases.

Don’t call it Bean Town anymore. Bark Town is, perhaps, more accurate. The Boston Globe says its city “may or may not have achieved its dream of being a world class city for humans, but from a canine perspective we have arrived.” Three new luxury pet hotels have recently opened up, offering up amenities like flat-screen TVs and spa services to its four-legged guests. VIDEO

“Four Years From Start-Up to Obsolete.” That’s what the New York Times writes about Cisco’s somewhat baffling decision to shut down its Flip video camera business. I know people who love their flip cameras. But the Times says the rise of the smartphone is what did them in.

The average American workday is eight and a half hours.  Mexicans, on average, log ten-hour workdays.  Citizens of Belgium typically work a seven-hour day. The New York Post says a French think-tank study found that in addition to working a half an hour longer than most people in the developed world, Americans also spend the shortest time in the kitchen, only about 30 minutes a day.

The New York Post has a touching photo this morning. A dog in the street is the only resident of a Japan town abandoned because of the nuclear incident. More than 18,000 people are missing from Minamisanriku. The Post says the town’s official website “remains frozen in time, offer[ing] a chilling glimpse into the daily lives of its residents and what they were doing when disaster struck.”

The Washington Post writes a big feature on NPR’s Andy Carvin in today’s paper. You might know him better as @acarvin. A prodigious tweeter, Carvin has amassed 43,000 followers since the beginning of the political upheaval in the Middle East, when he became a “one-man Twitter news bureau.”

The New York Times has a preview of the newly remodeled San Francisco airport, which opens its doors on Thursday. Conceding that the “words delight, joy and flying do not usually appear in the same sentence,” the Times says the renovation put equal emphasis on redefining travel as an enjoyable pastime and lessening the building’s environmental impact.

For months, an advocate for the homeless noticed transient men walking around with “black eyes, split lips and limps.” He finally approached one of them to ask how he’d been injured. And the answer, says the St. Petersburg Times, shocked him. Apparently, a local business called shefights.net was recruiting the men to get beat up on camera by “scantily clad or semi-nude women.” Their compensation? $50 a beating.

Pine nuts can literally leave a bad taste in your mouth says the San Diego Union Tribune. Called pine mouth, the “increasingly common taste disorder” causes a bitter, metallic taste to linger in the mouth for two weeks after a person ingests pine nuts. The bad taste is triggered by eating other foods. The FDA is aware of the problem but has been unable to ascertain what causes it.

After reading that Giants pitcher Brian Wilson’s dream was to be the answer to a crossword clue, a Google employee and a computer scientist set out to make his dream come true. As an added challenge, they constructed their puzzle around baseball pitchers from World Series winning teams who shared names with musicians who had a No. 1 Billboard hit.  The result, says the San Jose Mercury News, was “pitch perfect.” DO THE PUZZLE

Those seeking a weight loss solution will often go to great lengths. But one Pennsylvania doctor proved that there’s a limit. The Philadelphia Daily News says charges have been filed against a weight-loss specialist who told several female patients an orgasm would help them lose 200 calories a pop. And, surprise, surprise, he offered to help them get there.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the firing on Fort Sumter prompted the start of the US Civil War, a conflict and historical moment that the Washington Post says gave birth to modern America. In honor of the anniversary, the Post put together an impressive 22-page special section.

In an attempt to illustrate a lesson on the Civil War, an elementary school teacher in Virginia held a mock slave auction with her fourth graders, ordering black and mixed-race students to one side of the room and white children, who proceeded to bid on them, to the other. The Washington Post says it took just a few hours for the parent complaints to start rolling in.

Nicolas Cage’s “national treasure” has resurfaced, says the LA Times, and police are trying to figure out where it’s been for the last decade. A copy of the first Superman comic book was stolen from the actor ten years ago; it was found earlier this month in a storage locker. LAPD “art detail detectives” are now on the case. SEE COMIC

Chernobyl was a level 7 nuclear disaster. And now the situation in Japan is too reports the LA Times this morning. Based on radiation levels released after the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, Japanese officials now characterize the nuclear crisis as a “major accident”; its previous level-5 designation was called an “accident with wider consequences.”

The judge called it a case of “settler’s remorse.” The Wall Street Journal says the Winklevoss twins just lost an appeal to rejigger their settlement with Facebook. Concluding that “at some point, litigation must come to an end,” the judge said the twin’s must live with the $20 million in cash and $45 million in Facebook stock they received back in 2008.

Our scheduler at NY1 has a candy jar on her desk with which I am well acquainted. It never occurred to me that I should blame someone else for tempting my sweet tooth, but the Wall Street Journal says many office employees see their colleague’s pot of sweets as diet sabotage.

Police in Pittsburgh are looking into whether two cops used excessive force while making an arrest at a Pirates game over the weekend. A video of the incident surfaced on YouTube, which shows the officers using a Taser to subdue an unruly fan. When the man failed to go down, the cops beat him dozens of times with their batons as a large crowd watched reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. VIDEO

The Philadelphia Daily News says a college professor has come under scrutiny following reports that he hired three “scantily clad strippers” to give lap dances to students who signed up for his symposium on “the application of Platonic and Hegelian ethics to business.” In his official university bio, the professor says he tries to enrich his teaching by using “real life examples.” Hmmm.

USA Today has a interesting interview with k.d. lang in this morning’s paper. On the verge of a tour for her new album, lang says she’s invigorated by the strength of the music business: “When you have Arcade Fire winning best album at the Grammys, something good is happening. Radio is dying, but music is vibrant, wherever people are listening to it. I think it’s never been healthier.”

There are many wonderful things about having children. But according to a new study, there are a couple not so wonderful things too: kids, apparently, make you fat. OK, that’s a simplification. But the Minneapolis Star Tribune says researchers at the University of Minnesota determined that new parents are much less likely to exercise and eat well than young adults without small kids.

How’s this as a candidate for the perfect job? Ryan Wagner’s daily duties include sitting on the couch, drinking beer and watching 2,430 baseball games. The Baltimore Sun says 25-year-old Wagner is one of two lucky guys the MLB is paying to watch every game this season.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time. An amateur photographer in Alabama snapped what scientists say is the first-ever documentation that birds eat sting rays reports the Birmingham News. Danny Dolan just happened to catch a heron in his viewfinder at the exact moment the water bird speared the ray.  See the PHOTOS

According to USA Today, girls are hitting puberty earlier than ever, a phenomenon that has doctors and experts at a loss. It’s estimated that 15 percent of American girls now begin puberty by the age of seven. Many reasons—obesity, “hormone-like” environmental chemicals—have been blamed but no one sure exactly what has caused the ramped up development; boys are maturing at the same rate they always have.

It’s been 20 years since the launch of Comedy Central. The network, which turned two decades on April Fool’s Day, is stronger than ever writes the New York Times this morning. “South Park” and Jon Stewart continue to pull in big audiences; Stephen Colbert is a big part of the equation as well. And the highest ratings in the past year have come from Daniel Tosh’s web-clip program. VIDEO

In the US, it’s flown under the radar. But in Sweden, it’s front-page news. The LA Times says Ikea factory workers in Virginia claim their employer is guilty of racial discrimination, creating a “frenzied workplace” and barring them from unionizing. Ikea’s corporate policy, referred to as IWAY, guarantees the right to organize and maintains that all overtime must be voluntary.

He hit some trees. He hit a row of cabins. By the time he was finished, 21-year-old Rory McIlroy had made a Masters record—just not the one he was after says Bill Plaschke of the LA Times. McIlroy’s sudden disassembly manifested in a score of 80, which “tied the worst final-round score by a 54-hole leader in the tournament’s 75-year history.”

Guns, drugs, packed lunches. Those are things students at a Chicago middle school are banned from bringing to school. Forcing kids to eat lunches provided by the school is a way to save them from their own bad choices says the principal. According to the Chicago Tribune, students complained about the taste of their school-issued lunches and tossed many of them in the trash on a recent visit by reporters.

Kids say the darnedest things—especially when they’re a little tipsy. The New York Daily News says a 15-month-old toddler was rushed to the hospital after an Applebees’ employee in Michigan mistakenly filled his sippy cup with margarita instead of apple juice. The boy’s mother said she became concerned when her son started saying “hi and bye to the walls.” VIDEO