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April 1993

March 1993 May 1993

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[Harper’s Index]

Amount NASA spent to develop the sanitary-napkin disposal unit in the space shuttle Endeavour : $200,000

[Harper’s Index]

Number of times actress Drew Barrymore says she has been “to hell and back” : 1

[Harper’s Index]

Fee Paramount paid a Los Angeles psychologist last year to tailor a script “to the needs of a mass audience” : $150,000

[Harper’s Index]

Chances that a film winning the Academy Award for Best Picture was released in the second half of the year : 4 in 5

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the number of thumbs up given last year by Gene Siskel to the number given by Roger Ebert : 4:5

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the divorce rate in cities with a major-league baseball franchise to the rate in cities that are applying for one : 3:4

[Harper’s Index]

Estimated distance the average major-league home run would travel if hit on the moon, in feet : 4,200

[Harper’s Index]

Chances that a person who has not seen an Amy Fisher TV movie can cite a reason for the war in Bosnia : 1 in 3

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the number of women who deal with depression by eating to the number of men who do : 3:1

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the number of men who deal with depression by drinking or taking drugs to the number of women who do : 5:1

[Harper’s Index]

Number of rolls of cherry-flavored Lifesavers Frank Sinatra’s contract requires be provided backstage at each show : 12

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change, since 1991, in the number of New York Times stories mentioning Elvis : +50

[Harper’s Index]

Number of “Home of Bill Clinton” birdhouses sold by Russell’s Smokehouse in Hope, Arkansas, since November : 150

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change, since 1991, in sales of rubber chickens at House of Magic in San Francisco : +150

[Harper’s Index]

Price of ten pencils made from “recycled twigs,” from the Nature Company : $39.50

[Harper’s Index]

Number of square feet of lawn in the United States for every American : 5

[Harper’s Index]

Amount of matzo sold worldwide for Passover last year, in acres : 1,856

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who are willing to “accept limits on what health care is available to the average person” : 20

[Harper’s Index]

Number reported the previous January : 46,136

[Harper’s Index]

Number of months since budget cuts at the Bureau of Labor Statistics eliminated government tracking of layoffs : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Chances that a dollar of federal revenue last year came from corporate income taxes : 1 in 10

[Harper’s Index]

Chances in 1963 : 1 in 5

[Harper’s Index]

Portion of Somalia to which U.S. oil companies have bought drilling rights since 1986 : 3/5

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of the parts in each new Chrysler Concorde, “the renaissance of the American car,” that are imported : 28

[Harper’s Index]

Number of Porsches pawned last year at Collateral Lender of Beverly Hills : 21

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the number of millionaires in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet to the number in George Bush’s : 1:1

[Harper’s Index]

Average number of phone calls received each hour by the White House during Bill Clinton’s first 10 days in office : 2,500

[Harper’s Index]

Number of announced layoffs reported in the New York Times in January : 83,103

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who say they use prayer as a form of health care : 25

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change, since 1990, in claims filed with Prudential for treatment of multiple personality disorder : +300

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage of Americans who favor prenatal genetic manipulation to improve intelligence : 42

[Harper’s Index]

Ratio of the number of licensed gun dealers in the United States to the number of gas stations : 6:5

[Harper’s Index]

Average percentage of bank deposits in a minority community that are reinvested in the neighborhood : 4

[Harper’s Index]

Average percentage of bank deposits in a white community that are reinvested in the neighborhood : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Number of people murdered in U.S. family courts during the last year : 8

[Harper’s Index]

Percentage change, since 1991, in the circulation of Women & Guns Magazine : +50

[Harper’s Index]

Chances that a viewer of an Amy Fisher TV movie can cite a reason for the war in Bosnia : 1 in 5

[Article]

The soul of an intercontinental wanderer

by Pico Iyer,

[Article]

Neo-Nazi kids

The sensitive approach

by Harper’s Staff,

[Photography]

Igor

by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia,

[Article]

And enjoy your stay

by Harper’s Staff,

[illustration]

Genetic code copyright

Art by Larry Miller,

[Article]

Gays, the military . . . and my son

by Roscoe Thorne,

[Article]

Bill Clinton

The concept

by Peter Guber,

[Article]

Smoking guns

How tobacco buys its influence

by Allene Roberts,

[Article]

Avoiding librarianism

by Harper’s Staff,

[Article]

Diary of a smoker

by David Sedaris,

[Photography]

Readings

by Debra Heimerdinger,

[Responses]

The Cultural Illiteracy of MBA’s

by Richard P. Vance, Brooke Allen Saladin, Robert W. Prichard, Peter R. Peacock,

[Article]

Edible words

by Mike McAlary,

[Article]

War games

by Karla Schweitzer, Dolf Zillman, James B. Weaver, Elizabeth S. Luttrell,

[Article]

Human rights after the Cold War

by Robert Cullen,

[illustration]

Fish out of water

Art by Bill Heine,

[Cartoon]

Readings

Drawn by J.A. Reid,

[Article]

A psychoanalysis of worry

by Adam Phillips,

[Article]

The sorest loser

by Lighton Ndefwayl,

[Fiction]

Varieties of disturbance

by Lydia Davis,

[Article]

Coming to America, to clean

by Ana Maria Corona,

[Photography]

Readings

by Nick Waplington,

[Poetry]

Refugees

by Beckian Fritz Goldberg,

[Photography]

Untitled

by Hiroyuki Matsumoto,

[Letters]

Letters

by Harper’s Staff,

[Notebook]

Show and tell

by Lewis H. Lapham,

[Harper’s Index]

Harper’s index

by Harper’s Staff,

[Article]

The last shot

At Abraham Lincoln High School, black kids play basketball for love, a college scholarship, and--if they can beat the odds--a way out

by Darcy Frey,

[Article]

Is this any way to train a doctor? Medical residencies

The next health-care crisis

by David Ewing Duncan,

[Fiction]

Top of the food chain

by T. C. Boyle,

[Article]

Into woods

There are times when life needs renovating

by Bill Roorbach,

[Article]

No Peace in the Valley

In Kashmir deadly disputes continue to divide, and multiply

by Anthony Spaeth,

[Double acrostic]

No. 124

by Thomas Hazlehurst Middleton,

[Puzzle]

Circuitous reasoning

by E.R. Galli,

[Findings]

Bay Area researchers debuted a Narcissism Interview Scale for Employment.

[Findings]

More than half of U.S. civilians tasked with evaluating a bombing target endorsed killing unidentified bystanders.

[Findings]

Solitary chicks emit fewer anxious peeps if given a mirror for company.

[Findings]

Marine biologists described the Red Sea’s grumpy dwarfgoby.

[Findings]

Bottlenose dolphins, who were found to inhale and exhale microplastics, respond to a smile with a smile one third of the time.

[Findings]

Archaeologists identified the skeleton recovered from the Sverresborg Castle’s well in 1938 as the man described in the Sverris Saga as having been thrown into the well in 1197.

[Findings]

A primatologist, a mammalogist, and a linguist concluded that the jerky, rhythmic dance of sexually mature female black crested gibbons is innate rather than culturally transmitted.

[Findings]

Parmesan researchers found that “benevolently sexist” adults are less likely to own “clit-oriented” sex toys.

[Findings]

Germans under thirty experience more climate distress and have more rough sex.

[Findings]

Mars gained and then lost a second moon in the autumn.

[Findings]

Scientists determined why some aging gray horses turn white faster than others.

[Findings]

The stranger churches of sixteenth-century London extensively spied on their congregants, noting when women accused other women of being “pocked whores.”

[Findings]

Evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Proto-Indo-European language was spread by humans on horseback may have overlooked how humans who ride cows, donkeys, and wild asses exhibit the same hip -socket deformations, as previously observed in twentieth-century nuns.

[Findings]

Scientists allowed a king oyster mushroom mycelial culture to control the movements of a soft five-limbed robot and a four-wheel vehicle.

[Findings]

Juvenile Japanese eels can escape from the stomachs of dark sleepers by pushing their tails back through the fish’s esophagus and out its gills.

[Findings]

EEG experts disagreed on whether, in the future, brain waves could be used to read dreams and long-term memories.

[Findings]

Turkish doctors reported a case of penile autoamputation with religious delusion.

[Findings]

AI researchers determined that large language models pose no existential threat to humanity and created an AI algorithm that can detect scientific articles written by other AI algorithms.

[Findings]

Mammoths may have been killed with planted pikes rather than with thrown spears.

[Findings]

The birth of a white buffalo fulfilled a Lakota prophecy portending better times.

[Findings]

Wildfires near Canadian mines were found to have released unprecedented levels of arsenic, and wildfires in Maui were making residents unhappy.

[Findings]

Living near oil and gas development sites depresses people who are trying to get pregnant.

[Findings]

The Journal of Pediatric Genetics retracted a study on Islamic beliefs concerning the possible supernatural causes of birth defects on the grounds that the research lacked a scientific basis.

[Findings]

A researcher noticed that a Tartessian slate tablet depicting battle scenes also contains a previously unknown alphabet.

[Findings]

The royal swan marker reported that the depression of the Thames population, previously noted during the late queen’s reign, continues under the king.

[Findings]

Researchers claimed that researchers have been underreporting same-sex sexual activity among animals.

[Findings]

Cocaine trafficking was found to threaten the golden-cheeked warbler.

[Findings]

A survey of 7 million parliamentary speeches across eight countries and several decades found that politicians use less complex language as it gets hotter.

[Findings]

The diet of Japanese youth is growing more confectionary, and Americans are poisoning themselves more severely.

[Findings]

Unaffiliated voters are growing more spiteful toward both Democrats and Republicans.

[Findings]

Researchers debuted an 88 percent accurate hate-speech detector and a superior sarcasm detector and may be able to send messages back in time.

[Findings]

Increased border-wall height was tentatively linked to a thirtyfold increase in the rate of migrant drowning deaths off San Diego.

[Findings]

Women bond more closely with therapy bulls than men do.

[Findings]

The perceived onset of old age increases by approximately one year for every four to five years a person ages.

[Findings]

A study of brain-injured but not brain-dead patients found that many would have survived had their families not chosen to withdraw life support.

[Findings]

Sets of both fraternal and identical twins exhibit internally similar metacognitive abilities, suggesting that metacognition is environmental rather than heritable.

[Findings]

Southern California beach erosion is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2050.

[Findings]

Archaeologists translated cuneiform tablets recording shareholder agreements for the first company in Anatolia.

[Findings]

The melting of the poles is making Earth’s days longer.

[Findings]

The hatching season of a male spear squid (Heterololigo bleekeri) determines whether he will pursue bold or sneaky mating tactics.

[Findings]

A bionic eye deciphered a scroll carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that reveals the burial place of Plato, who was found to have complained about the musical abilities of the enslaved Thracian girl who played the flute for him as he lay dying.

[Findings]

Humans are losing their ability to digest cellulose.

[Findings]

Toxicity has remained a consistent feature of online interactions since 1989.

[Findings]

Microplastics were found in sixty-two of sixty-two human placentas from a biobank in Texas.

[Findings]

A metal scar on the surface of the white dwarf WD 0816-310 indicated that it has cannibalized other bodies in its orbit.

[Findings]

An orca acting alone killed a great white shark and ate its liver.

[Findings]

Genomic analysis indicated that psychedelic mushrooms emerged around the time of the Mesozoic–Cenozoic mass extinction.

[Findings]

The playing speed of a metal guitarist directly correlates with his intrasexual competitiveness but not his mating success.

[Findings]

Depression in humans is correlated with higher body temperature, and cold-water swimming mitigates menopause symptoms.

[Findings]

Researchers warned that, as temperatures rise, humans should prepare for more diarrhea.

[Findings]

A mother is 4.6 percent more likely to give birth in the same month she was born, and adjacent siblings are 12.1 percent more likely to be born in the same month as one another.

[Findings]

Electric eel discharge transforms the DNA of zebrafish larvae.

[Findings]

An AI that was fed the employment and health data of six million Danes turned out to be more accurate than existing sociological methods at predicting if a given person was about to die.

[Findings]

Onshore wind turbines severely deter German bats from foraging.

[Findings]

Astrophysicists argued that the development of advanced alien technology requires an atmosphere composed of at least 18 percent oxygen.

[Findings]

Off the Five Finger Islands, a team of cetologists aboard the Glacier Seal conducted an extended conversation with a female humpback named Twain.

[Findings]

True crabs independently evolved to live out of the ocean up to seventeen times.

[Findings]

The average American girl born in 2019 will take prescription drugs for more than half her life.

[Findings]

The U.S. municipal bond market penalizes communities in proportion to the percentage of their population that is black but generally ignores their vulnerability to climate change.

[Findings]

Somalis, surveyed as proxies for earlier inhabitants of the Cradle of Humankind, were found to fear spiders less than scorpions but snakes to the expected degree.

[Findings]

The collapse of the Qing Dynasty was driven by the quadrupling of its population and consequent rural impoverishment, an overabundance of qualified applicants for elite academic degrees, rising costs and trade deficits, and falling productivity, which were variously associated with internal unrest, opium imports, and the depletion of silver reserves.

[Findings]

Geoscientists were confident that, given access to the oldest barnacles on the flaperon of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, they could help pinpoint its crash site.

[Findings]

Scientists were not certain whether the globally synchronized waves observed in the brains of wakeful rats on ketamine or LSD were a cause or a symptom of hallucinations.

[Findings]

Neuropsychologists developed a shorter IQ test for children with shorter attention spans.

[Findings]

The depression-prone are less attracted to the political right.

[Findings]

The nocturnal heart rate of young men can be predicted by their female partners’ daytime feelings of intimacy or annoyance.

[Findings]

Men who pose for photos with cats are seen as less datable.

[Findings]

Men can rate the facial attractiveness of women without paying attention, but women cannot do the same for men; gay men find the faces of purportedly fertile women and men more attractive; adolescents and adults both rate the faces of children younger than 4.6 years old as more appealing than those of older children; and body odors associated with fear quicken the visual processing of others’ facial expressions of fear.

[Findings]

Beak covering and nape-feather ruffling indicate calmness in sulfur-crested cockatoos.

[Findings]

Repetitive negative thinking was associated with an increased risk of dementia, and self-harm in female adolescents may prevent suicide.

[Findings]

Psychopaths recommend harsher punishments for homicides, whether accidental or motivated by profit, but exhibit relatively low concern about killing in general.

[Findings]

Online murder-for-hire advertisements seek to convey professionalism yet tend not to provide references up front.

[Findings]

Convalescent plasma helps Syrian hamsters fight SARS-CoV-2.

[Findings]

Plastic surgeons suggested that Botox could reduce the expression of negative emotions by masked faces.

[Findings]

The presence of a professional sports team increases a city’s seasonal flu deaths.

[Findings]

A psycholinguistic analysis of posts on Twitter and Weibo during COVID-19 lockdowns found that residents of Lombardy grew increasingly focused on leisure and residents of Wuhan grew increasingly focused on religion.

[Findings]

Recent toilet-paper hoarding was more prevalent among Americans than Europeans and more prevalent among the old than the young.

[Findings]

Gerontologists cautioned that it would be difficult to predict individual Holocaust survivors’ trauma or resilience in response to the pandemic, which was expected to strengthen the market for laboratory mouse-suffocation chambers.

[Findings]

Researchers proposed replacing the paradigm of extinction with that of evanescence.

[Findings]

Climate change was expected to drive American lobsters to seek deeper waters, beavers to colonize new parts of Canada, and wolf spiders in the high Arctic to produce a second annual brood.

[Findings]

Humboldt penguins who nest in the open have more pollutant metabolites in their blood than do penguins who nest in guano-rich burrows.

[Findings]

The tiger snakes of Perth have heavy metals in their livers.

[Findings]

Satellite imagery captured ecosystem damage from fog loss, and aerial photography confirmed the existence of Roman military camps revealed by the 2018 Welsh drought.

[Findings]

A young woman in a Vilnius plague pit was found to have been coinfected with yaws.

[Findings]

A man buried at Newgrange passage tomb was found to be the product of first-degree incest, indicating that he was a member of the elite.

[Findings]

Scientists trained subjects to exercise control over a single neuron, linked the hippocampus to regret, and concluded that humans smell in stereo.

[Findings]

Straight Slovakians assume that a woman in high heels will inspire more intense mate-guarding.

[Findings]

Women who receive continuous rather than interrupted sutures for perineal repair after vaginal delivery report higher sexual levels of arousal and orgasmic function.

[Findings]

Pinkness predicts aggression in flamingos.

[Findings]

Chimpanzees have a bone in their hearts.

[Findings]

Rising population density, poor hygiene, and cold, moist weather led to a spike in ear infections in the Levant around 4000 bc, and postwar atmospheric nuclear testing led to increased cloud thickness and rainfall in the Shetland Islands.

[Findings]

A period of global coolness 4,200 years ago accelerated the diversification of japonica rice.

[Findings]

Ostrich-shell beads indicating the onset of the Initial Upper Paleolithic were found to have reached Shuidonggou by 39000 bc, and strontium isotope levels revealed the social exchange of ostrich-shell beads during the Late Quaternary in the Karoo Supergroup.

[Findings]

Interviews with reptile poachers in southwestern Balochistan indicated that the Caspian cobra, the desert monitor, the Iranian mastigure, Maynard’s longnose sand snake, the Persian spider gecko, and the Tartar sand boa were being captured for use by snake charmers.

[Findings]

Herpetologists inventoried the scars of snakes found in the Danube Gorge.

[Findings]

Half of Algeria’s marine turtle strandings are inexplicable.

[Findings]

Hemotoxic snakebite may be treatable with a heavy-metal chelator.

[Findings]

The mating calls of male Panama cross-banded tree frogs are synchronized to confuse bats and midges.

[Findings]

Arson dogs’ noses remain better than lab equipment at detecting certain accelerants.

[Findings]

April 1993

Amount NASA spent to develop the sanitary-napkin disposal unit in the space shuttle Endeavour : $200,000

Number of times actress Drew Barrymore says she has been “to hell and back” : 1

Fee Paramount paid a Los Angeles psychologist last year to tailor a script “to the needs of a mass audience” : $150,000

Chances that a film winning the Academy Award for Best Picture was released in the second half of the year : 4 in 5

Ratio of the number of thumbs up given last year by Gene Siskel to the number given by Roger Ebert : 4:5

Average number of days each year that an American is in a bad mood : 110

Percentage of Americans who are in a good mood every day : 2

Percentage of Americans who say they “love” doing their taxes : 2

Ratio of the divorce rate in cities with a major-league baseball franchise to the rate in cities that are applying for one : 3:4

Estimated distance the average major-league home run would travel if hit on the moon, in feet : 4,200

Chances that a person who has not seen an Amy Fisher TV movie can cite a reason for the war in Bosnia : 1 in 3

Ratio of the number of women who deal with depression by eating to the number of men who do : 3:1

Ratio of the number of men who deal with depression by drinking or taking drugs to the number of women who do : 5:1

Number of rolls of cherry-flavored Lifesavers Frank Sinatra’s contract requires be provided backstage at each show : 12

Percentage change, since 1991, in the number of New York Times stories mentioning Elvis : +50

Number of “Home of Bill Clinton” birdhouses sold by Russell’s Smokehouse in Hope, Arkansas, since November : 150

Percentage change, since 1991, in sales of rubber chickens at House of Magic in San Francisco : +150

Price of ten pencils made from “recycled twigs,” from the Nature Company : $39.50

Number of square feet of lawn in the United States for every American : 5

Amount of matzo sold worldwide for Passover last year, in acres : 1,856

Percentage of Americans who are willing to “accept limits on what health care is available to the average person” : 20

Number reported the previous January : 46,136

Number of months since budget cuts at the Bureau of Labor Statistics eliminated government tracking of layoffs : 8

Chances that a dollar of federal revenue last year came from corporate income taxes : 1 in 10

Chances in 1963 : 1 in 5

Portion of Somalia to which U.S. oil companies have bought drilling rights since 1986 : 3/5

Percentage of the parts in each new Chrysler Concorde, “the renaissance of the American car,” that are imported : 28

Number of Porsches pawned last year at Collateral Lender of Beverly Hills : 21

Ratio of the number of millionaires in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet to the number in George Bush’s : 1:1

Average number of phone calls received each hour by the White House during Bill Clinton’s first 10 days in office : 2,500

Number of announced layoffs reported in the New York Times in January : 83,103

Percentage of Americans who say they use prayer as a form of health care : 25

Percentage change, since 1990, in claims filed with Prudential for treatment of multiple personality disorder : +300

Percentage of Americans who favor prenatal genetic manipulation to improve intelligence : 42

Ratio of the number of licensed gun dealers in the United States to the number of gas stations : 6:5

Average percentage of bank deposits in a minority community that are reinvested in the neighborhood : 4

Average percentage of bank deposits in a white community that are reinvested in the neighborhood : 8

Number of people murdered in U.S. family courts during the last year : 8

Percentage change, since 1991, in the circulation of Women & Guns Magazine : +50

Chances that a viewer of an Amy Fisher TV movie can cite a reason for the war in Bosnia : 1 in 5

The soul of an intercontinental wanderer

Neo-Nazi kids

Igor

And enjoy your stay

Genetic code copyright

Gays, the military . . . and my son

Bill Clinton

Smoking guns

Avoiding librarianism

Diary of a smoker

Readings

The Cultural Illiteracy of MBA’s

Edible words

War games

Human rights after the Cold War

Fish out of water

Readings

A psychoanalysis of worry

The sorest loser

Varieties of disturbance

Coming to America, to clean

Readings

Refugees

Untitled

Letters

Show and tell

Harper’s index

The last shot

At Abraham Lincoln High School, black kids play basketball for love, a college scholarship, and--if they can beat the odds--a way out

Is this any way to train a doctor? Medical residencies

The next health-care crisis

Top of the food chain

Into woods

There are times when life needs renovating

No Peace in the Valley

In Kashmir deadly disputes continue to divide, and multiply

No. 124

Circuitous reasoning

Bay Area researchers debuted a Narcissism Interview Scale for Employment.

Evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Proto-Indo-European language was spread by humans on horseback may have overlooked how humans who ride cows, donkeys, and wild asses exhibit the same hip -socket deformations, as previously observed in twentieth-century nuns.

EEG experts disagreed on whether, in the future, brain waves could be used to read dreams and long-term memories.

Researchers claimed that researchers have been underreporting same-sex sexual activity among animals.

Cocaine trafficking was found to threaten the golden-cheeked warbler.

Researchers debuted an 88 percent accurate hate-speech detector and a superior sarcasm detector and may be able to send messages back in time.

Increased border-wall height was tentatively linked to a thirtyfold increase in the rate of migrant drowning deaths off San Diego.

A study of brain-injured but not brain-dead patients found that many would have survived had their families not chosen to withdraw life support.