If you have something to sell, and a buyer asks to pay using Venmo, you could lose both your money and your item. Jennifer Khordi is one of many who got scammed and wants to help others avoid her fate. Read the rest

Congratulations to humanity for contaminating sea salt! A new study found all but one of 17 commercial sea salt brands from eight different countries contained microscopic plastic particles. Microplastic: it's what's for dinner! Read the rest

Remember the Lily Drone that automatically follows you while filming? After generating almost $50 million in funding and pre-sales, Lily is shutting down in wake of litigation that concluded their too-good-to-be-true demo video was not shot on the Lily. Read the rest

SabbaticalHomes.com is like Airbnb for academics looking to rent their homes during sabbaticals. Sounds genteel, but many states allow long-term guests to establish tenancy, often after 30 days. Mother Jones has an infuriating and cautionary tale about the homestay marketplace: the sharing economy can intersect with tenant rights, and the people who know how to work that system might decide not to pay rent or leave until evicted. Read the rest

Stanford historian Robert Proctor amassed a remarkable collection of candy cigarette packaging in Golden Holocaust, like this candy cig marketed as "Just Like Daddy!" Yes, they were evil, but sometimes the best things in life are. Read the rest

Review Meta has published an in-depth analysis of 7 million Amazon reviews and found that "incentivized reviews," those with a disclaimer that the reviewer got the product free or discounted, skew substantially higher than non-incentivized reviews. Read the rest